56 WINTER TALKS ON SUMMER PASTIMES. 



is grand to stand up in your canoe when both fish and canoe 

 move at equal lightning pace, and you are able to keep a taut 

 line upon him every inch of the way. I have often had just 

 such experiences, and the recollection of them still stirs the 

 blood like the sound of a trumpet. 



Sea trout show themselves wherever salmon are found, but 

 not always simultaneously with them. In rivers where the 

 salmon run begins in May or early June, you need not look for 

 sea trout in any considerable numbers before well on into July. 

 Intermediately they are found in tidewater at the mouths of 

 the salmon rivers, and often in such numbers and of such 

 weight as give the angler superb sport. Three, five and 

 seven pound fish are not uncommon, and I have heard of 

 them of even greater weight, but I have never myself taken 

 one of over five pounds two poun ds less than a real brook 

 trout, I once killed in the Rangeley waters, a beautiful f ac 

 simile of which was kindly painted for me by Dr. Otis, of 

 New York, who was in camp with me at the time. There 

 is no picture in my collection I value more highly. 



Next to salmon fishing I know of no more exciting sport 

 than angling for sea trout in waters where they reach their 

 highest dimensions; for waters differ in regard to this fish 

 as in regard to both brook trout and salmon the weight of 

 all fish being determined by the abundance and quality of 

 the feed available to them. There are salmon rivers open to 

 all comers for sea trout alone, after the salmon season is 

 over, say from the middle of September on. I can imagine 

 few things more fascinating than such an excursion. I 

 know a river that you can strike fifty miles above its mouth, 

 by an easy portage of six miles from the st eamboat landing. 

 To float down these fifty miles with the current, in a bark 

 canoe, with such scenery .on either hand as can hardly be 

 excelled on the continent, is something which any appreci- 

 ative angler might covet. It is a trip I have never yet 

 found leisure to take, but affairs will go hard with me if I do 

 not try it the coming season. 



Like trout, salmon vary in size in different rivers. Why 

 this is so is a mystery which I have not been able to solve. 



