FISHING AT HOME AND ABROAD 

 blue -back or sockeye of the canneries and the humpback and dog salmon, 

 used chiefly by the Indians— five species in all— belong to the genus 

 Oncorhyncus of the Salmonidse. 



From the sportsmen's point of view the most important of these is the 

 King or Tyee, Quinnat, Spring or Chinook salmon, which runs from fifteen 

 to over eighty pounds in weight, specimens of one hundred pounds having 

 been occasionally seen. Its back is of a blacker hue than that of the Atlantic 

 salmon, and the white of the sides and under parts shows much less silvery 

 sheen. 



It has been a much-debated question as to whether the British Colum- 

 bia salmon takes the fly, but it may now be accepted as a fact that at 

 least the smaller Quinnat and the Cohoe will take it in salt or brackish 

 water while remaining in the estuaries of the rivers, but that neither of 

 them will take either fly or bait in inland waters. 



The record salmon taken on rod and line in British Columbia waters 

 was a Quinnat killed by Sir William Musgrave at the mouth of the Camp- 

 bell River in September, 1897. It weighed seventy pounds and measured 

 four feet three inches in length. It was taken by trolling with a spoon, 

 and required an hour and forty minutes to kill. Mr G. P. FitzGerald camped 

 with Sir William Musgrave on this occasion at the mouth of the Campbell 

 River, Vancouver Island, and trolled while crossing and recrossing the 

 small bay into which the river flows, under the guidance of an Indian. He 

 employed the Indian spoon, a plain silver lure with a loose hook, and took 

 eight fish in one catch, of which six were about fifty pounds each. As Dr 

 Lambert has well said, " The spoon fishing of the Namsen and other 

 Norwegian rivers fades into insignificance beside such sport," and he 

 cites the case of Mr Duncan as having had excellent success with the 

 prawn, which he was the first to use ther^, and as having caught large 

 numbers of salmon about seven pounds in weight with a silver-bodied 

 fly. It is an open question, however, whether these fish were really salmon 

 or steelhead trout. These latter growto a large size and are then often called 

 salmon by the natives, as much on account of their close resemblance to 

 that fish as for their large size. 



At many points on the coast of Vancouver Island the Quinnat salmon 

 are taken as early as February, and during the first weeks of spring the 

 Indians of the west coast keep the markets of Victoria and Vancouver well 

 supplied with these big fish taken on trolls. More fish are killed by anglers 

 in the vicinity of Vancouver, Victoria, Cowichan Bay and the mouth of the 

 172 



