Salman -Fishing. 405 



While the Canadians are so tenacious of their leases, and naturally 

 desirous of keeping the best streams for themselves, yet they are most 

 generous and kind to their "States" friends. Often, one is not only 

 accorded a permit to fish, but receives an invitation to make, for the time 

 being, all the accessories and fittings of the stream his own, including 

 houses, canoes, and cooking-utensils. My invitation, some years ago, 



CANADIAN SALMON RIVERS AND GASPE BASIN. 



from that genial sportsman, Mr. Reynolds, of Ottawa, was to make the 

 York river my own, paying simply for my men and provisions. His 

 guests kill every year many salmon to his one, and he enjoys their 

 success far better than his own. An Indian would wish him, in the 

 happy hunting-grounds, the exclusive right of the best stream. We can 

 only express our heartfelt wish that for a score of years to come he 

 may continue yearly to take his 47-pound salmon in his favorite stream. 

 To the cost of stream and tackle must be added the great uncer- 

 tainty of getting fish. One may secure the best stream, purchase 

 the best tackle, and travel a thousand miles to no purpose, for Salmo 

 solar is a very uncertain fish, and the worst sort of a conundrum. 

 Sometimes he comes early and sometimes late ; sometimes he goes 

 leisurely up the rivers, lingering accommodatingly at the pools, and 

 seemingly in good mood for sporting with flies ; and sometimes, 

 when kept back by the ice of a late spring, he goes for the head- 

 waters at once, only stopping when compelled by fatigue, and then 

 26 A 



