Fly-Fishing among the Ice-Cakes 



drawn-out " playing." They are convinced that if a 

 salmon succeeds in breaking a leader and gets away with 

 a hook in its mouth and a length of trailing, irritating 

 gut hanging to it, it will live but a short while. They 

 assert that the leader will get tangled, snag the fish and 

 drown it, or so impede its fighting qualities that the eels 

 will attack and eat it. There is no doubt that eels which 

 grow to a very large size in these waters do attack salmon 

 that are the least incapacitated and destroy them. More 

 than one fish has been pounced upon by these ferocious 

 scavengers between the time of taking the fly and being 

 gaffed. 



The question is often asked why a salmon will take a fly, 

 since the lure does not resemble anything that swims in 

 the water, floats upon it, nor flies above it. Strange as 

 it may seem, nothing in the form of food is ever found in 

 a salmon's stomach, if killed on its way upstream. The 

 only reasonable answer is that the salmon is a true sport 

 and is chock-full of curiosity. 



On the other hand, a slink, racer, or spawned salmon, 

 if taken on the way downstream, is a voracious feeder, 

 and will grab anything from a store-made fly to a chunk 

 of meat. 



It is against the law to catch and keep racers. Although 

 they are the full length of the prime salmon, they are 

 very slim and slinky in appearance. The flesh is white 

 and comparatively soft. The salmon just in from sea 

 on their way up to the spawning beds are a beautiful, 

 bright, silver colour, and are fat, pink deliciousness from 

 head to tail. 



If a fisherman is hardy and enthusiastic enough, he 

 should assuredly take a week off in February or March 

 and experience the thrills coincident with a tug-of-war 

 with a Salmo solar. 



203 



