FISHING AT HOME AND ABROAD 

 on the south shore— the Restigouche, for instance— the water is not nearly 

 so clear, and the fish are only distinguishable in the pools with great 

 diflBculty, and sometimes not at all. 



In the Grand Pool of the Grand River it is quite possible to count fifty 

 to seventy salmon at one time. They will not always rise to the fly, but 

 when one is hooked here the sport is fast and furious. There are other 

 remarkable pools in the river. One is so wide that it is impossible to cast 

 from the sandy beach on one side to the deep rapid water on the other in 

 which the salmon lie. The guides pole the canoe containing the angler 

 across the stream, a little above the pool so as not to disturb it. The bank 

 on the farther shore is too steep to land upon, and is also overhung with 

 trees. One of the guides holds the canoe against a tree on the bank, while 

 the angler lets his fly drop down with the rapid current, for the over- 

 hanging trees prevent him from casting. When a salmon takes the fly in 

 the current in question, which very often happens, a battle royal is 

 assured, provided the fish is well hooked. The canoe is let loose from 

 the shore, both Indians struggle with might and main to urge it up 

 against the rapid and to get it across to the sandy beach without 

 permitting it to drift down upon the fish and giving it a slack line. 

 Notwithstanding that there is a considerable length of sandy beach, it is 

 often necessary to take again to the canoe and follow a hooked fish before 

 it can be killed. 



The better part of the pools in the Godbout, on the north shore of the 

 Gulf of St Lawrence, are private property, and in four weeks a party of 

 anglers killed 509 fish in them. One angler is known to have killed over 

 forty salmon in one day in this river, though an average of one or two per 

 day satisfies most anglers, and three, four and five per day is considered 

 excellent fishing. Three fish, weighing respectively thirteen, fifteen and 

 seventeen pounds, killed one morning before breakfast on the Trinity 

 River, in the summer of 1897, remain in memory of my most enjoyable 

 hour and three-quarters of sport with rod and line, in a good many years 

 of angling. What burnished silver flashing and dazzling in the sunlight 

 could compare with the opalescent hues of the smallest of the trio, fresh 

 from the sea, and what racehorse ever more valiantly struggled to pass 

 the winning post than this salmon did to return to his salt-water home, 

 when finding himself impaled by the barb concealed in the gay deceit 

 which had lured him to his doom ? Only the foresight of my half-breed 

 guides in having the canoe ready to receive me at the foot of the pool 

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