FISH AND FISHING. 



FASTIDIOUS OUANANICHE. 



F. G. NELSON. 



A curious instance of the fastidiousness of 

 ouananiche was noticed last June, during 

 our annual visit to the Grand Discharge of 

 Lake St. John. We were all well supplied 

 with different sizes of the favorite flies, jock 

 scott, silver doctor, cowdung, brown hackle 

 and professor; but Lyme had an extra pair 

 of silver doctors, differing slightly in ap- 

 pearance from his others, and from ours, 

 which he had bought at Springfield just 

 before starting on the trip. During the 

 early part of our first day's fishing he no- 

 ticed that one of these 2 silver doctors was 

 taking all of his ouananiche, so he put on 

 the other, also, in place of the brown hackle 

 at the end of his leader. His success was 

 constant. He fished with us, away from us 

 and all around us. He traded places with 

 us; he did everything but trade flies. 



Along toward the middle of the after- 

 noon, when he had 35 ouananiche, running 

 from 34 to 3 pounds each, and we but 8 be- 

 tween us, a good sized fish took one of his 

 silver doctors and made a rush straight out 

 toward the middle of the river. 



Lyme had about 6 feet of slack line drawn 

 off the reel which he held in his left hand, 

 and when this was taken out by the ouanan- 

 iche, and the line began to render directly 

 from the reel, the handle thereof caught in 

 the cuff of his sleeve and before it could be 

 disengaged the line was snapped just above 

 the leader. The loss of those 2 flies ended 

 the fish catching for that day, for, although 

 he immediately put on another leader and 

 tried other silver doctors, and then nearly 

 every fly in his book, neither he nor we 

 caught another fish. 



The season of 1896 appeared to be. later 

 than those of preceding years. The water 

 did not seem higher, although it was said 

 to be so; but the fish were nowhere nearly 

 so plentiful as in former Junes, and when 

 hooked were comparatively sluggish in 

 their movements. In the 2 previous years 

 the best fishing in the Grand Discharge was 

 synchronous with the appearance of count- 

 less numbers of a slender brown fly, with 

 gauzy wings, reaching 2 inches in length, 

 which swarmed around the Island House 

 after dark, creeping and crawling every- 

 where. Up to June 22d, in 1896, these flies 

 had not appeared, and, possibly for the 

 same reason, whatever it may have been, 

 the ouananiche also were scarce. 



Inasmuch as nobody wishes to make the 

 trip to Lake St. John and find himself too 

 early or too late for the best fishing, let me 

 sugsrest that intending fishermen write to 

 T. Kenna, Manager of Hotel Roberval, or 



A. J. Ritchie, Manager of the Island House, 

 about the first of June, and ask to be noti- 

 fied, promptly, when the ouananiche begin 

 rising freely to the fly, in the Grand Dis- 

 charge. 



On our way up there, from Springfield, 

 Mass., via Boston and Maine and Grand 

 Trunk roads, to Quebec, and thence North 

 via. Q. & L. St. J. Ry., we stayed 3 days at 

 Landlord Rowley's Laurentide House, at 

 Lake Edward, spending part of the time at 

 a camp which he maintained 10 miles down 

 the lake. We caught, with bait, large brook 

 trout weighing s l A 'pounds or less, and 

 smaller ones with the fly, in the headwaters 

 of the Batiscan river. The black flies and 

 mosquitoes were numerous and attentive, 

 but they are said to disappear in midsum- 

 mer, while the fishing stays good all 

 through the season. Verbum sap. 



STATE FISH COMMISSIONERS. 



Most of the States of the Union have at- 

 tempted to provide for the protection of the 

 game and fish within their borders, by the 

 enactment of fish and game laws and the 

 appointment of Fish and Game Commis- 

 sioners. 



The attention given to the matter has 

 varied with the importance of the game, 

 fishing and fisheries interests, and with the 

 intelligence of the legislatures in the dif- 

 ferent States. 



The amounts appropriated, annually, for 

 carrying out the provisions of the laws 

 vary from nothing, or from $300 to $800, 

 as in Indiana and Georgia, to $50,000, as in 

 New York. In some States, as New York, 

 Michigan, and California, a vast amount of 

 good has been accomplished; while in 

 others, scarcely less important in their fish- 

 ing and fishery interests, no good has been 

 done. 



The differences in the results attained, in 

 the different States, are not wholly due to 

 larger appropriations in some States than 

 in others. They are due in no small de- 

 gree to the fitness or unfitness, for the 

 work, possessed by the different Commis- 

 sioners. 



This brings me to the question: What 

 constitutes fitness for the position of State 

 Fish Commissioner? To answer this ques- 

 tion it will be helpful to consider, briefly, 

 the proper and legitimate purposes of a 

 State Fish Commission. 



Manifestly, the primary object of a State 

 Fish Commission should be to maintain, at 

 the maximum possible limit, the supply of 

 food and game fishes of the State. This is 

 by no means a simple nor an easy matter. 



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