1902 DEPARTMENT OF FISHERIES. 43 



OVERSEERS' REPORTS. 



District Overseer Judd, Morton, reports as follows : 



" In my last annual report, I referred to the past season's satisfactory 

 returns, of the quantity and quality of the catch of fish in my district, of the 

 diminishing abuses and consequent observance of the laws and regulations, the 

 increased number of tourists, the interested feeling of the people in the value of 

 the fisheries and their co-operation in protection. 



I made suggestions as to the limitations of catch, the preservation of min- 

 nows, the ridding our waters of destructive fish; and what is true of that season 

 is quite as much so in the one just closed. 



That difficulties and suggestions for improvement are continuously coming 

 to notice, is nevertheless a fact. Indeed it would be a miracle yet unheard of 

 if legislation dould devise a system of laws and regulations that could be ad- 

 justed to all circumstances and meet universal approval. 



Every year brings knowledge with experience, and it has been my desire 

 to note carefully wherein these difficulties arise and report to you from time to 

 time. That there is a general and marked improvement in the observance of 

 law and the development of our fisheries, that an awakening and increased 

 feeling is becoming more and more manifest, is an assured fact, from testimony 

 continuously coming to hand and that never before were strenuous efforts from 

 your department more loudly called for. 



In this report I beg to confine myself to certain characteristics which ap- 

 pear most prominent towards perfecting the machinery of protection, viz : 



(1) The cooperation by means of anglers' associations. 



(2) The encouragement of such by your department. 



(3) The preservation of minnows and extermination of ling. 



In my official position, I have been the means of organizing six anglers' 

 associations. These associations comprise a membership each of from 50 to 100 

 or over, having a president, two vice-presidents secretary-treasurer, and an 

 executive committee of seven. They are in active working order and enthusi- 

 astic in response to a call of meeting. 



These associations group in their immediate locality a number of lakes 

 ranging from five to twenty in number, over which they assign to themselves a 

 careful watch. They know well the peculiar characteristics of this group of 

 lakes and suggest by way of resolutions, questions of granting or not granting 

 licenses, the appointment of local overseers who shall reside within touch of 

 their group of lakes, give information of infractions to their local secretary, 

 who, in turn, interviews the local overseer, and thus you will observe, a 

 machinery is on the spot at all times whereby it will be impossible for fish- 

 mongers either with, or without licenses to commit the depredations hitherto so 

 prevalent. 



So far, my efforts in this direction have been experimental and with this 

 view I have " made haste slowly," but from what has been done I am convinced 

 that it will eventually be the solution of the problem of protection, and that I 

 cannot press you too strongly upon the question of its adoption. 



The co-operation of the public is one thing, but a specific organization of 

 citizens who have local active interested feeling is altogether different. The 

 one carries with it a passive moral tone in the administration of the law ; the 

 other is the active machinery which sets in motion the executive of the law. 



The question of encouraging such associations is an important one. If you 

 will take into consideration the innumerable lakes which nature has bestowed 

 upon Eastern Ontario, how they are being mapped and studied by the leisured 

 wealth of this continent, the hundreds of thousands of guide books that are 



