184 SALMON AND TROUT. 
A spring salmon will not travel as fast as a summer salmon. 
The rate at which salmon travel is dependent upon the state of 
the weather and the temperature of the water. Should there 
be a hard winter, lasting, as it often does, well into the spring, 
hardly a fish will have found his way to the upper waters ; but 
should there have been an open winter, with good travelling 
water and no obstruction, the upper reaches will be fairly stocked 
by the time the fishing season commences. Of course there 
are exceptions, and, however mild the spring may be in some 
rivers—for instance, the Wye and the Usk in Monmouthshire 
and Brecknockshire—spring fish will not travel above a certain 
distance, and the upper waters do not get stocked until well on 
in the season. In Scotland the temperature of the water in 
the early spring is always very low, and obstructions in the 
Scotch rivers stop the fish running, so that they will not pass 
these until the weather gets warmer and the temperature of 
the water higher.! 
On the Helmsdale and Shin, in Scotland, are falls over ‘ditch 
salmon can easily pass, but they will never do so until the 
month of April, and it is known almost to a day when they will 
make their appearance in the stream above these falls. That 
salmon are very susceptible to cold is quite certain ; although 
they are fresh out of the sea, and in their primest condition, and 
will take a fly or bait greedily, yet they will not lodge in a rapid 
stream in the early part of the spring, but are always found in 
easy. water, just where one would expect to find a spent fish ; 
and it is not until well on in the spring that they will lodge in 
rapid water? 
1 Is it not probable that the big fish travel slower than the smaller ones, as 
in all rivers the first school of fish that come in are the biggest and heaviest during 
the year, and each subsequent school is successively smaller? Also as the 
weight and volume of water coming down are greater in the spring than the 
summer, does that not probably make the progress of the fish slower in 
spring ?—ED. 
? Who can account for the fact that when you cannot find, or certainly see 
or rise a fish on the Lochy in the early spring, you can take scores on the Garry 
of beautiful large salmon in prime condition? The shortest journey to the 
Garry is through the river and loch Lochy, and yet the fishermen will tell you 
