Hours for Angling 135 



it began I went to camp. Very shortly there- 

 after I heard of two instances of capital sport, 

 one in Canada, and one on the Dee in Scotland, 

 in dense fogs. So there is hardly one, if any, 

 rule in salmon fishing without exceptions. Mr. 

 Samuel Wilmot of Ottawa, a veteran and suc- 

 cessful angler, held the belief that salmon slept 

 during the heat of the day and that their normal 

 periods of activity were mornings and evenings. 

 To prove this he had several salmon confined 

 in a pool he made near the mouth of Indian 

 House Brook on the Restigouche, and said 

 that at midday, especially in warm weather, they 

 were almost torpid, and had to be disturbed a 

 great deal to rouse them to any kind of activity. 

 This view of Mr. Wilmot's has lately been con- 

 firmed in a letter to me from Mr. Andrew 

 Williamson, and I think what he says is inter- 

 esting enough to be given here : — 



" Do salmon sleep ? I am convinced they do and that this 

 often accounts for their not taking. One calm, cloudless day 

 on the Grimersta, the last of the season, I fished, without get- 

 ting a rise, the tail of the second loch where just as the waters 

 enter the river there is a hole which usually holds a good lot 

 of fish. I told my gillie to row me to the other side, a dis- 

 tance of about thirty yards. As he did so my black pointer 

 swam after us, and was carried by the stream right over the place 



