240 With Rod and Gtm in New England 



from a dark brown to black, and then so neutral as to be lost for a 

 moment from view. Changed indeed are the salmon, or the few which 

 survive to return from the spawning season in fresh water to the sea. 

 From the day of estuary passage, a falling off in every respect commences. 

 Food is no longer sought or taken. The silvery sheen and iridescent 

 hues slowly disappear. The stomach and its auxiliary glands shrink away 

 to one tenth of the normal size. The color gradually changes to black. 

 The flesh becomes dry and insipid, and if the fish ever returns to the sea 

 after a long passage to the headwaters of its stream, it comes in a sadly 

 demoralized condition, with its fins and tail worn away, bruised, blotched, 

 distorted, and often blind. It is not probable that the salmon is a very 

 deep water fish, or that it goes far from its native stream, but it seeks its 

 food from the small fish which keep the vicinity of the shores. The fact 

 that they are seined every month of the year on the Pacific coast, to a 

 considerable extent evidences this. 



It is clear that the salmon of Monterey bay are those which belong to 

 the Sacramento or San Joaquin river group. Their average weight con- 

 firms this, and that they are not of the Columbia river. The distance from 

 Monterey bay to San Francisco bay, into which the Sacramento and San 

 Joaquin rivers pour, is about ninety miles. Monterey bay and that of 

 Santa Cruz, a few miles north, and some of the sounds and bays north 

 on the coast, are the only places known where the salmon is found engaged 

 in taking his food, and where it can be caught with fresh-fish bait. It 

 certainly presents a favorable opportunity for studying the salmon in its 

 normal condition, in its prime, engaged in seeking its natural food. Here 

 its manners and peculiarities can be examined with ease and some knowl- 

 edge obtained of the class of food upon which it best thrives. All this 

 can be obtained and the salmon brought to gaff in his superior condition 

 before the advanced condition of the organs of reproduction have reduced 

 its delicious flavor or weakened the vigor of its efforts. 



It may be claimed by those fishermen who are so wedded to the arti- 

 ficial fly that trolling with a spinning anchovy or sardine is not the proper 

 deceit for the king of fish ; but it may be a question if such a view is not 

 of the fanciful and fantastic order, rather than the opinion of the experi- 

 enced all-around fisherman, who, disdaining an unfair advantage over his 

 game, does not decline the use of a lure which may to an extent compen- 

 sate his victim for the risk which it undergoes. 



