The Salmon of Monterey 191 



know the difference or why there should be a 

 difference is one of the piscatorial nuts which 

 you and I need not worry about as we are going 

 a-fishing. Then Dr. Jordan tells us that the 

 forty-pound salmon we are in search of at Mon- 

 terey dies after it spawns, hundreds of miles 

 from the sea, and worst of all is the trait of 

 the Pacific coast salmon told in the story. It 

 seems that when the American government was 

 considering the purchase of Alaska from Eussia 

 the English government objected, but an old 

 salmon-fishing English angler settled the ques- 

 tion at a conference with the following remark : 



" Oh, let the d Yankees have it, the salmon 



won't rise to a fly." And so we got Alaska for 

 a bagatelle, and its salmon fisheries, alone worth 

 ten times the amount of the purchase price. 



This is true, the salmon will not rise to a 

 fly, though I remember an article on the Klack- 

 amas by Kipling in which he described his 

 catches with the fly, and how he and a name- 

 less companion pranced up the sands and landed 

 the big fish. This, doubtless, was one of the 

 few exceptions, and I conclude that Kipling had 

 some peculiar flies which he has kept to himself 

 ever since. 



If the salmon will not take a fly, they make 

 up for it by rising to a spoon, or sardine bait, 

 in a fashion to delight the most critical angler, 

 and I can imagine no more inspiriting scene 



