A CANADIAN RIVER 125 



Alexander Russell, in command at Halifax, 

 Admiral Commerell, and two or three others. 



We always did our greatest execution dur- 

 ing the first three weeks, when the river was 

 still full of water. After that it fell rapidly 

 to a low summer level, with only occasional 

 freshets anxiously watched for by all of us. 

 Towards the end of the time it became dif- 

 ficult to inveigle a fish into rising. We had 

 to depend mainly upon the evening fishing, 

 and to use quite small flies. 



The high average weight of our fish com- 

 pels attention. We caught scarcely any 

 grilse. I never understood why this was so. 

 Was there an autumn run of grilse? The 

 men had apparently never heard of it. I 

 think we could have collected heavier bags 

 if we had fished all day. but as a general rule 

 we were content with an hour or two in the 

 early morning and another spell when the 

 sun got low. During the intervening hours 

 there was plenty of time for reading and 

 writing, and perhaps for a siesta in the 

 verandah. 



