>\t ■ 3 



FISHM 



SOME NEW BRUNSWICK TROUT. 



BY CHAS. A. BRAMBLE. 



Most trout fishermen know that the rivers 

 flowing into the Gulf of St. Lawrence yield 

 wonderful catches of fish, and it is true that 

 one may hardly go astray, if contented with 

 a moderate amount of sport, anywhere along 

 the shores of that great inlet. Whether the 

 fisherman's steps lead him to Cape Breton, 

 Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, New 

 Brunswick, or Quebec he will certainly find 

 use for his fly rod from May to September, 

 but of all the rivers in which I have wet 

 a line, the Tracadie deserves the palm. There 

 may be, probably there are, streams even bet- 

 ter stocked with trout than the Tracadie, 

 but as the only possible objection to this 

 river is that it is too full of absurdly free- 

 rising fish, no one need seek a better water. 



A brief description of the Tracadie must 

 precede my story in order that the reader 

 may follow me intelligently, for to many the 

 Northeastern corner of New Brunswick is 

 a little-known region. Between the month 

 of the Miramichi and Shippegan, a small 

 fishing station at the entrance to the Bay 

 Chaleur, are two quite important streams, 

 though they appear insignificant on the usual 

 small-scale maps of the province. 



The more southerly is the Tabusintac, a 

 famous trout water, but one that I cannot 

 speak of from actual knowledge, the other, 

 the Tracadie, one of the most "sporty" trout 

 waters I have ever fished, east of the Rocky 

 mountains. 



• I should estimate its total length at forty 

 miles, of which a continuous stretch of fif- 

 teen miles is a succession of pools swarming 

 with trout from June to the freezing of the 

 waters. 



Both the Tracadie and the Tabusintac dis- 

 charge into lagoons, or gullies, as the natives 

 call them, and just before winter seals the 

 pools every trout drops down to salt water, 

 nor re-ascends the river until the spring 

 floods are subsiding, toward the close of 

 May. When they first strike into fresh 

 water, they are bright as a new silver dollar, 

 their small heads sunk in their arched shoul- 

 ders, with flesh deep colored, and full of 

 curdy flakes, telling of much good living 

 during the long months of a Northern win- 

 ter. These are the "sea trout" of the earlier 

 writers, and if you would convince yourself 

 that they are identical with Salvelinus fonti- 



nalis, do as I did, camp by the river side and 

 watch them change, day by day, until by the 

 first day of September you may search each 

 limpid pool in vain for a single one of those 

 superlatively beautiful, silvern fish that were 

 so abundant just six weeks earlier. Trout, 

 there are, in abundance, big, lusty fellows, 

 the males fiery red underneath, with ugly 

 hooked jaws; the females dusky, though far 

 less repulsive than their consorts, yet show- 

 ing plainly the deterioration inevitable, ap- 

 parently, in all the salmonidae upon the ap- 

 proach of the spawning season. 



Let me tell of a couple of trips I made a 

 few years ago to this wonderful little river. 

 On my first visit I had to put up with a 

 canoe provided by my guide, Frank Con- 

 nors, and it proved rather too large for the 

 river, which in its upper waters, is little 

 more than a brook. A long half day's drive 

 from Bathurst, a town on the Intercolonial 

 railway, one of the best built and most up- 

 to-date railways in the Dominion, brought 

 me to Connors' home, in the midst of the 

 spruce woods and secluded enough for a 

 hermit, though on the main road between 

 Bathurst and Chatham. 



Here we "boiled the kettle," and then 

 placed our belongings on a drag made out 

 of a forked tamarac knee, which a heavy 

 horse, accustomed to the woods, walked away 

 with, and delivered, somewhat damp and 

 muddy yet intact, at the dam on the upper 

 South Branch early in the afternoon. Llere 

 our troubles began. The brook was dead 

 low, and for two and a half miles we had to 

 lift the canoe, filled with all our camp kit, 

 over the shallows, only resting from our 

 labors af the few pools that would float the 

 outfit. 



By dusk we were in camp at the Forks, 

 and then the rain came down, and continued 

 to come down for three whole days. More- 

 over, as the rain came down, the river rose 

 to meet it, so in the end they drove logs 

 out of the Lord and Foy Brook that had 

 been hung up since the spring freshets had 

 subsided. 



Altogether, a week was lost, or rather it 

 would have been lost had I had a less cheery 

 and interesting companion than Connors, but 

 as it was, barring the black flies that were 

 bad, and the sand flies that were much worse. 

 I did pretty well. Every few hours I would 

 slog down through the dripping bushes to 



74 



