SALMON RIVERS 363 



trance, thus removing an obstruction and at the 

 same time ensuring a supply of fish for breeding. 

 At present he gets more fish in one day than he 

 did before in a whole season. What was done 

 there can be repeated elsewhere. I look upon a 

 salmon river just as I do upon a piece of land. 

 The latter has a capacity for raising a certain 

 number of bushels of grain, etc. If you do not 

 get that amount of crop it must be that it is either 

 badly cultivated or overgrown with weeds. A 

 river has a capacity for a certain quantity of 

 fish. When you do hot get that, there is a cause 

 for it. 



Some years ago Mr. Alex. Laurie, of Quebec, 

 who fishes the Laval river, asked me why it was 

 that they seldom got any small fish on that 

 stream. It is really noted for its large salmon. 

 My answer was that I thought only the big ones 

 had a chance to survive there, all the smaller fish 

 being gobbled up. The river only runs a few 

 miles and then forms a good sized lake, which is 

 infested with pike, some of them of enormous 

 size. I found one dead pike in the spring of 

 1898 on the mud flats of Laval Bay that must 

 have weighed nearly forty pounds. It had a pair 

 of jaws like an alligator and could have taken in 

 a ten pound salmon. If there are many such fish 

 in the lake above referred to, it is no wonder that 

 small fish are seldom seen there. 



Few rivers on the North Shore can compare 



