MAIDEN SALMON. ^ 93 



size, which we catch in the spring are maiden fish. 

 The Aberdeenshire Dee is notorious for the small 

 average weight of its spring salmon. Occasion- 

 ally heavy fish are caught during the spring, but 

 the average weight of the spring run is 7 lbs, to 

 8 lbs. I have often asked myself the question, 

 "What fish are these, and when have they been 

 up the river to spawn ? " Take, for example, a 

 fresh-run Dee fish, 7 lbs. weight, caught, say, in 

 April, 1887. If that fish had been up the river to 

 spawn the previous season, it must have been iden- 

 tical with a smolt that had migrated to sea at the 

 latest during the spring of 1885, running up the 

 river the same year as a grilse, and returning to 

 the sea as a grilse kelt in the spring of 1886. 

 Now, supposing that as a grilse kelt it only 

 weighed 2 lbs., is it possible that between the time 

 it went to sea in 1886 and the month of April, 

 1887, it could only have attained the weight of 

 7 lbs. ? The Dee holds very heavy salmon, as any 

 angler who has fished the river during the autumn 



