SALMON FISHING. 



229 



opportunity of thanking him for the very valuable information he has 

 afforded me concerning the fisheries and fishing of the province, and 

 of bespeaking his friendship and attention for any of my readers who 

 shall be induced by the perusal of these pages to wet a line in the 

 rapids of the St. John, the Obscache, the Chemenpeek, or the Richi- 

 bucto. 



Before proceeding to describe the mere technical portions of Salmon 

 fishing, and the implements necessary for the prosecution of the sport, 

 I shall take the liberty of quoting from myself a chapter of a nove- 

 lette now in course of publication in Graham's exeellent magazine, 

 entitled Jasper St. Aubyn. I do this not egotistically, nor altogether 

 to save time and trouble, but rather because it contains as correct an 

 account of the mode to be pursued in casting for the Salmon, hooking, 

 playing and killing him in an English river, as I am capable of writing ; 

 and because the variety of the narrative style may possibly prove a 

 relief to the reader, after the drier routine of more didactic writing. 



It is scarcely, perhaps, necessary to add that the mode of fishing for 

 the Salmon in England and America are identical, the tackle and im- 

 plements the same, and the same flies the most killing in all waters, of 

 which singular fact, and other matters connected with which, I shall say 

 more hsreafter. Nor, I presume, need I apologise to my reader for 

 the slight anachronism which has attributed to an ideal personage sup- 

 posed to live in the age of the Second James all the modern improve- 

 ments and advantages possessed by the anglers of the present day, and 

 all the skill and science which were certainly not to be found at that 

 time in any Salmon-fisher, not excepting even good quaint Father 

 Izaak, whose maxims on Salmon-fishing, and indeed on fly-fishing in 

 general, savor far more of antiquity than of utility. 



" It was as fair a morning of July as ever dawned in the blue sum- 

 mer sky ; the sun as yet had risen but a little way above the waves of 

 fresh green foliage which formed the horizon of the woodland scenery 

 surrounding Widecomb INIanor ; and his heat, which promised ere 

 mid-day to become excessive, was tempered now by the exhalations of 

 the copious night-dews, and by the cool breath of the western breeze,. 



