SALMON-FISHING AS AN INDUSTRY 



sportsmen, so that the business part of the fishing is done 

 mainly in the fjords and at the river-mouths. 



How should a salmon know the difference between a 

 river-mouth and long, narrow openings into the land such 

 as the Sogne and Hardanger fjords, which, from the 

 open sea, look exactly like estuaries ? He doesn't, until 

 he has explored such openings; and this is a work of 

 time, for the Sogne Fjord is "all arms and legs/ 1 Thirty 

 miles down it widens, basin-shaped ; a little further on, 

 a river-like opening runs up into the land on either side 

 and, beyond these creeks, are five others, two of them 

 nearly thirty miles long, very narrow, and winding away 

 into the Jotunfeld group, so that there is nothing but 

 salt water to distinguish them from short mountain 

 rivers. And not always that, for little streams of fresh 

 water empty themselves into one or two of these, and 

 are not infrequently used as spawning-grounds. 



The narrower and more ramified fjords, then, are even 

 more effectual salmon- traps than Puget Sound, for by the 

 time the fish that have escaped netting on their entry 

 from the Atlantic have finished their researches, they too 

 have become a prey to the snares and nets laid for them 

 in other parts of the opening. 



For mid-fjord and open-sea fishing the Norwegians 

 employ the same kind of seine as that used in the 

 Columbia River, though a good deal smaller, and worked 

 by a few small boats, which tow the gradually closing 

 net into the shallows for cleaning. 



But a seine is a valuable article, not to be dragged 

 haphazard against rocks that, in less than a minute, 



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