THE SALMON AND ITS MIGRATIONS 195 



(gr0fartb 0f Salmon. Many a time I have been 

 asked, when looking at a salmon, after a success- 

 ful fight: "What do you think is his age?" If 

 the fish is large this is a rather difficult question, 

 but if of ordinary size one can form a good and 

 close estimate by keeping in mind the rate of 

 growth after the smolt stage is past. Parrs pass 

 into the smolt stage in their third and fourth 

 year, going out of the rivers in August and Sep- 

 tember and sometimes in October, and returning 

 the next season in July, August and September 

 as grilse, weighing then three to five pounds. In 

 rivers where the fish are large they may be a 

 pound or so heavier. Therefore a grilse may be 

 either four or five years old. The rate of growth 

 after that will be from four to six pounds a year. 

 This accounts for the great number of salmon 

 that weigh from nine to twelve pounds. Thirteen 

 to sixteen pound fish are not common, making a 

 gap again, as there is between grilse and ten 

 pound fish, but we have large numbers again run- 

 ning from sixteen to twenty pounds and probably 

 then seven to eight years old. Beyond this last 

 weight, the growth is more difficult to follow, the 

 fish then approaching the adult state in most of 

 our northern rivers. All the same I find that we 

 get more fish of twenty- four or twenty- five pounds 

 than of twenty-two or twenty-three. Variations 

 in the above will occur of course, in such rivers 

 as the Moisie or Bersimis, where the fish attain a 

 large size. 



