CHAP. xvir. ESQUIMAUX BONE SPOONS. 2G7 



The spoon is in common use in Lake Superior, and 

 many of the largest lake trout are caught by it. The 

 size to which this fish grows in that inland sea is remark- 

 able. 



Mr. Mackenzie, the officer in charge of the Hudson's Bay 

 Company Post at Fort William, took a trout in a net at 

 the close of the fishing season in 1858, which weighed 

 eighty pounds. A French half-breed caught one of nearly 

 the same dimensions, and when asked to describe it, 

 naively said, ' You see that little woman there ? well, she 

 is my wife. She gave me a little son last November ; I 

 caught my trout in October. I measured my wife when I 

 caught the trout; the trout was just two span bigger than 

 my little woman you understand.' 



A correct idea of the vast number of fish which are 

 taken annually in Lake Superior by the spoon may be 

 derived from the perusal of the following paragraph from 

 the Eeport of the Fishery Overseer for the district of Lakes 

 Huron and Superior for 1859 :- 



' On Lake Superior, in September 1858, John Finlayson, 

 a subordinate officer of the Fort William Post, with a 

 common spoon hook and line, caught, in two hours and a 

 half (paddling), over four miles of coast, between Pigeon 

 Eiver and Big Trout Bay, seventy-four trout, averaging 

 five pounds each. He told me that he was tired of 

 pulling them in, or could have filled his canoe two or 

 three times. On September 27, 1859, on the shoals 

 between Horse and Yeo Islands, Joseph Trudeaux 

 with a common spoon hook and a railroad spike for a 

 sinker, caught (sailing) 152 trout in six hours. I saw 

 the fish next morning ; they averaged eight pounds each, 



