SALMON FISHING. 225 



SALMON FISHING. 



Of all the piscatory sports, this is the fii-st and finest ; and although 

 it cannot now be pursued by the American angler except at the 

 expense of some not inconsiderable time and trouble, still there is no 

 land on earth in which it exists in such perfection as in this. 



Time was, when every river eastward of the Capes of the Dela- 

 ware swarmed with this noble fish, but, year after year, like the red 

 Indian, they have passed farther and farther from the sphere of the 

 encroaching white man's boasted civilization, and perhaps will also 

 ere \onrr be lost from the natural world of this era. 



The Kennebec is now the eastern limit of the Salmon's range, and in 

 that bright and limpid river he is yearly waxing less and less frequent. 



In the Penobscot, even to this day, he abounds ; but for some 

 singular and inexplicable reason, whether it be from the sawdusty 

 turbidness of its lower waters, or from some especial habit of the fish, 

 it is rarely or never known to take the bait or the fly, within very 

 many miles of the mouth of that grand and impetuous stream. 



Far up the northern and northwestern branches of the river it is 

 speared constantly by the Penobscot Indians ; but the white residents 

 of that wild region, lumbermen for the most part, and sparse agricul- 

 tural settlers, are guiltless of the art of fly-fishing — the only method, 

 by-the-way, except the use of roe-bait, whereof more anon, by which 

 much success can be expected or obtained. 



To the sportsman, that great track of grandly-timbered and superb- 

 ly-watered wilderness, which yet lies virgin almost and unbroken, from 

 within a few leagues of the ocean to the great St. Lawrence, and 

 from the Upper Kennebec to the Aroostook and St. John's, is yet 

 well nigh te>-ra incognita. 



Yet well would it repay the fisherman or the hunter, to pack his 

 traps in the smallest compass, and set forth with rifle, shot-gun, and 



