68 THE SEA-TROUT AND SALMON 



There are many good salmon rivers along the southern coast 

 of Newfoundland, among which the Garnish, the Bay du Nord 

 (Fortune Bay), Little River and Grandy's Brook (Burgeo), may be 

 noted. In Bay d'Espoir two fine streams flow respectively into 

 Bay d'East and Bay du Nord. There are also the La Poile and 

 the Rose Blanche. All these rivers, however, are not nearly so easy 

 of access as those of the west coast, several of which are crossed by 

 Reid's railway. 



The Terra Nova should soon become an excellent salmon stream, 

 as it contains a number of fine pools, and has been recently equipped 

 with two salmon ladders at the Upper and Lower Falls, which once 

 barred the ascent of the fish from the lower reaches. The Gander 

 is also naturally a fine river over thirty miles in length, which should 

 go on improving. It was ruined by former merciless methods of 

 fishing, which are now being put a stop to. Cruelly trapped, netted, 

 speared and even 'barred', small wonder that while it once yielded 

 1,000 tierce of salmon it virtually became depleted. The method 

 of ' barring ' a river is to stretch a net clear across from bank to 

 bank, which again is usually ' backed ' by another net of small 

 mesh directly behind it, so that if a small fish gets through the first 

 barrier he is certain to be stopped at the second. 



The great Cod Roy is easily reached from Port aux Basques, 

 the western terminus of the railway. Its valley is one of the most 

 fertile portions of the island. It is a shallow stream, but broad, 

 often affording very fair sport. The long estuary at its mouth 

 allows the nets to get more than a fair share when salmon are 

 running in from the sea. 



Among the other easily accessible streams on the west coast there 

 is Harry's Brook, where there is a good sportsman's hotel known as 

 The Long Cabin ; the Greater and the Less Barachois ; Fischel's 

 Brook ; Robinson's Brook ; Crabbe's Brook and the little Cod 

 Roy all of them near comfortable houses, so that camping out in 

 the bush though desirable is not an actual necessity. The pools 

 seldom in breadth exceed a fair cast even for a fifteen-feet rod. 



It may here be explained that on the island the terms lake 

 and river are only quite recently being applied even to large bodies 

 of fresh water. The early settlers who here won for England her 

 first foothold in the new world were hardy mariners from Devon 

 and the West country. Consequently they had no other word for 

 an inland expanse of still water save pond, or for a bit of running 

 water save brook, without regard to dimensions. A visitor receives 

 a shock at hearing a sheet of water fifty-six miles in length referred 

 to as Grand Pond. If this is a pond, he asks, what must the lakes 

 be like ? 



