OPEN SEASON. 381 



advertisements of somebody's purgative pills or so-and-so's 

 worm candy. This is worse than black flies. 



The open season for salmon fishing on the St. Lawrence 

 rivers is from the 1st of May to 1st of September. In 

 New Brunswick it extends to the 15th of September, and 

 in Nova Scotia the open season is from March 1 to 

 September 15. Speaking broadly, the best time for 

 fishing on all the St. Lawrence rivers and Bay of Chaleur 

 water is from June 15 to July 15. 



Formerly in Canada the rivers were open to all anglers, 

 and there was a certain unwritten law, binding among 

 all good sportsmen, that the man who first in each season 

 camped on a pool or section of a river was not to be inter- 

 fered with as long as he remained on the river. By-and- 

 by, however, shoals of Yankees began to invade the 

 provinces in the fishing season ; men swarmed upon 

 the rivers, not so much to fish as to have a good time. 

 These people recognized no prescriptive rights to pools 

 and rivers ; they camped opposite to you, and fished across 

 your line. For this reason, in the first place, and to 

 endeavour to shift the burden of protecting rivers on 

 to private shoulders, in the second place, the Dominion 

 Government resorted to the expedient of letting the 

 salmon rivers on lease. It is possible that if a fair and 

 impartial system of letting salmon rivers on lease were 

 put in practice the system would work well, both for the 

 revenue of the country, the protection of the fisheries, 

 and the benefit of the angling public; but the way 

 matters are conducted at present has given rise to a wide- 

 spread feeling of discontent, not only amongst anglers, 

 but amongst the general Canadian public. Every- 



