868 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



[June 16, 1893, 



TRANSPLANTING LANDLOCKED 

 SALMON. 



There are many anglers who hold that the winnanish, 

 landlocked or Schoodic salmon, afford more sport to the 

 ounce of weight than any other fish that swims, bar only 

 their brothers who pass to and fro between the sea and 

 the fresh water. One of the chief waters for winnanish 

 is the Lake St. John region north of Quebec. 



Mr. A. H. Light, the lessee of the Grand Batifcan 

 property which lies south of Lake St. John, has been 

 considering the feasibility of introducing the landlocked 

 salmon into the many lakes which are included in the 

 preserve which he controls. Before taking any steps in 

 the matter he consulted Mr. Samuel Wilmot, well known 

 as an expert angler and fishculturist and prominent in 

 Dominion government circles. We are permitted to 

 print a portion of Mr. Wilmot's letter to Mr. Light, and 

 give it below: 



Rideau Club, Ottawa, May 22. — You have asked me 

 what is the winnaniche, and in reply will you let me tell 

 you what I not only think, but know ifc to be, namely, 

 the true Salmo salar, somewhat degenerated, as it were, 

 by changed habitat, which, living wholly in fresh water 

 for some time, has adapted itself to the new conditions. 

 Reduced areas of water as compared with the expanse of 

 the sea, and the change from saline to fresh water food, 

 have reduced its size, somewhat changed its outward 

 markings, and given a lighter color to the flesh. But in 

 the opinion of many, and I am one of them, its delicacy 

 for the table is quite equal to that of the original salmon 

 of the sea, whose richness and fatness is often too much 

 for the digestive organs of the epicures. 



The smaller scion of the family, the so-called land- 

 locked salmon, Schoodic salmon or winnaniche is never- 

 theless quite as gamy for the sportsman as his original 

 parent, the salmon of the sea: and its habits of migrat- 

 ing from fresh water seas or lakes to rivers and streams 

 for breeding purposes is precisely the same. Although 

 the winnaniche in many waters is smaller in size than 

 the salmon, it is yet found to grow to a goodly weight. 

 I have seen in the earlier settlement around Lake On- 

 tario many thousands of them that weighed from 8 to 

 151bs., and instances are to hand where they have reached 

 from 20 to 251bs., and I am informed that even now in 

 the upper waters of Lake St. John, in the same section 

 of Quebec as your splendid game domain is situated, the 

 winnaniche is taken at times as high as 201bs. in weight. 

 I have also heard of instances in the Schoodic Lakes, in 

 Maine, where these fish have reached 201bs. Extensive 

 waters with abundance of food in them is what tells in 

 relation to the growth and size of fish of all kinds. If 

 the beautiful lakes on your domain in the Province of 

 Quebec, now so abundantly supplied with speckled trout 

 and other game fish, are not inhabited by the winna- 

 niche, the task is not difficult to stock them with this fish. 

 Suppose you and your friends were to put up some 

 cheaply constructed buildings at a cost of §300 or §400, 

 put in some fish hatching apparatus, supply it with pure 

 fresh water, get a quantity of the winnaniche ova, or 

 failing in that, get a lot of the eggs of the salmon from 

 the sea, put them in your building in charge of one of 

 your guardians, and you will accomplish the work of 

 stocking some of your lakes with this much prized game 

 fish. Of course your building should be made to keep 

 out frost in winter, and your guardian should be a reli- 

 able person to look after the eggs and fry during the 

 winter months. If you pursue this course I have no 

 doubt that in a few years you will have obtained success- 

 ful results from the undertaking. 



Many theorists and hair-splitting scientists may say the 

 winnaniche is a distinct species of Salmonidce, but prac- 

 tice and ocular trial, as well as results, conclusively show 

 that the Salmo salar and winnaniche, or landlocked 

 salmon, are one and the same fish; their change of habi- 

 tat and food producing their changed appearance to the 

 eye of the ordinary observer. Any one can produce the 

 landlocked salmon by simply taking the fry of the salar 

 and putting them in landlocked lakes where there is no 

 direct passage to the sea, and the result will be winna- 

 niche and Schoodic salmon, so called. I may here men- 

 tion another instance in relation to this landlocked 

 salmon. During my presence in London in 1883 as 

 Commissioner for the Canadian exhibit at the Inter- 

 national Fisheries Exhibition, a number of fresh-water 

 salmon were on exhibition, and many of them had been 

 yearly put on the London markets, so I was informed. 

 They were caught and brought from Lake Werner, in 

 S weden, where they could have no communication with 

 the sea. These were beautiful, bright, symmetrically- 

 formed salmon, ranging from 8 to 16 Lbs. They were 

 identical in every particular with the Lake Ontario salmon 

 of former years, with which I have been familiar 

 during the past sixty years, and great numbers of which 

 I have taken with net and spear from a stream running 

 bhrough my own property, up which they came from Lake 

 Ontario in the autumn months for the purpose of spawn- 

 ing: this Ontario salmon being the winnaniche of Lake 

 St. John, Province of Quebec, and the Schoodic Lakes, in 

 Maine. 



In conversations had with the Swedish Commissioners, 

 I learned the character and habits of their Lake Werner 

 salmon, which are precisely similar to the Ontario salmon, 

 their size and color being the same. This Lake Werner 

 is wholly landlocked. Its outlet to the sea is by a 

 river upon which is a fall impassable for the ascent of 

 any salmon from the sea. How these fish got there orig- 

 inally I could not learn, and the conclusion reached was 

 that by some upheaval of nature this lake became peopled 

 with the Salmo salar, or its young, and food and other 

 requisites suited for them. They became acclimated 

 here, making it their sea, and the stream emptying into 

 it their breeding grounds. Such has been the case 

 with the so-called landlocked salmon or winnaniche of the 

 Schoodic Likes, the St. John's Lake and Lake Ontario. 



In the two latter waters the fish differ somewhat from 

 others of their kind by reason of the possibility of their 

 reaching the sea, which in some instances a few no 

 doubt do. but in the great majority of cases they make 

 these lakes their sea and breed in the tributary streams 

 which feed these large bodies of fresh water. I have 

 no doubt on this question, as I has given most 

 positive proof of acclimatization of the Atlantic and 

 Pacific salmon to the fresh-water lakes by hatching fry 

 from the egss and introducing adult fish in Lakes Huron 

 and Ontario, specimens of which are on hand for verifi- 

 cation of this fact, 



I think I have said enough to convince you that if you 

 felt desirous you could stock any lake within your 

 domain with these gamy fish, providing always that it 

 was of sufficient magnitude and purity to supply food 

 for these fish, and that the rivers or other streams con- 

 nected with the lakes so as to form natural spawning 

 grounds. 



Food is the great desideratum for giving growth to fish 

 of all kinds, for it is well known that wherever there is 

 an abundance of fish there will be found the larger 

 growth of fish, and it is frequently the case that from 

 some cause or another certain waters may not have in 

 them supplies of small fish or Crustacea sufficient to give 

 the better kinds of fish their full growth. On this line I 

 would say with some application of ingenuity and skill, 

 you could introduce fish food into waters by planting 

 supplies of either fresh or salt water species of small fish 

 into these lakes. The experiment of transporting quan- 

 tities of smelts into such waters has proved most success- 

 ful. It is within the writer's knowledge that this has 

 been done, where a man owning a small lake on the top 

 of a mountain, which was inhabited by trout, caught 

 several barrels full of smelt in the Saguenay Eiver and 

 transplanted them to the lake where they throve so as 

 to produce a marked change in the size and flavor of the 

 trout. All that is required to bring about what you de- 

 sire both in stocking some of your lakes with winnaniche 

 and supplying them with food of good growth and 

 superior flavor is ingenuity and perseverance aided by 

 some means. Very truly, your friend and fellow angler, 



Samuel Wilmot. 



THE HABITS OF THE OU AN AN I CHE. 



A couple of recent visits to Lake St. John, at an earlier 

 season of the year than I have been hitherto accustomed 

 to visit that territory, and a pleasant and instructive 

 intercourse with American anglers met there, and with 

 observing residents upon the shore of the lake, have 

 enabled me to glean some few facts respecting the habits 

 of the ouananiche, new to me, as they perhaps may be 

 to the majority of your readers. Here, in Canada* the 

 prevalent idea of the early spring fishing in Lake St. 

 John has hitherto been that whatever ouananiche were 

 taken in the month of May fell a victim to the vulgar 

 wiles of the bait-fisherman. The supposition has prob- 

 ably been seasoned with a flavoring of truth, because the 

 May fishing in the past has been principally, though not 

 entirely, confined to the residents of the locality, whose 

 fishing is rather for food than for sport. But the inti- 

 mation that the season had opened this year at Lake St. 

 John several days earlier than usual sent numbers of 

 Canadian and American anglers thither a fortnight and 

 three weeks ago whose first visit in the year to this 

 locality had rarely, if ever, before been prior to the 

 month of June. Their success with the fly has been, as 

 a rule, in excess of any that has crowned their efforts at 

 the Grande Discharge at a later period of the year and 

 warrants the belief that large numbers of fishermen 

 would in other years imitate their example and at the 

 same time avoid the plague of flieB that advances with 

 the season, if only hotel proprietors would afford them 

 accommodation by opening their houses in the early part 

 of May and announcing the fact in advance to the anglers 

 of the continent through the columns of Forest and 

 Stream. 



It is a curious circumstance that while the largest fish 

 have generally been taken in the Grande Discharge with 

 the smallest flies, an eight-pound ouananiche having been 

 killed last summer by an American gentleman on a No. 

 8 hook, the fish in the lake itself and in the mouths of the 

 Ouiatchouan and Metabetchouan, where they have been 

 most plentifully taken this spring, have risen almost en- 

 tirely at the largest trout flies and at the bright flies of 

 the silver-doctor and Jock- Scot variety, when they ap- 

 proached the size of salmon flies. In regard to the move- 

 ments of these fish it is pretty clearly established from 

 recent observations that they are still arriving in the lake. 

 As the water has not commenced to fall at present writ- 

 ing, and is not likely to for a week or ten days to come, 

 the fishing will be good in the mouths of the lake's 

 feeders up to about the 20th inst. But by the loth the 

 fish will also be plentiful about the entrance to the Grande 

 Discharge, and a fortnight or so later the season for fight- 

 ing them in the rapids will open, and usually lasts till the 

 end of August, when the ouananiche commence to re- 

 ascend the rivers. 



Very few favorable reports of fishing in the south 

 shore salmon streams have yet been received here. The 

 north shore fishermen have not as yet gone down to their 

 rivers, but several are about preparing to leave for thpir 

 preserves. E. T. D. Chambers. 



Quebec, June 9; 



Trout Near Toronto. 



Toronto, Ont. — One May day the writer and Bob Mc- 

 Cready took the train for a little town 35 miles from 

 Toronto (I am not at liberty to give name now) for a day's 

 trouting. It was a cold, raw day, and consequently we 

 got no trout, but we had several hard pulls and saw some 

 large fish. We were fishing in about 30ft. of water among 

 old roots and logs, and when we got a strike the trout 

 would get home before we could get him in a clear space 

 to play him. The following Friday Mr, McCready and a 

 friend made another trip to the pond, with the following 

 result: Seven trout, the smallest weighing a little over 

 lib. and the largest 2lbs. 8ioz.; it was 20in. in length. 

 Mac is getting it mounted, and it will probably be on ex- 

 hibition at his store next week. He is negotating for the 

 pond and will start a club as soon as arrangements can 

 be made, which he thinks will be a grand success. — 

 Brown. 



Wall-Eyed Pike in New Hampshire. 



Woodsvtlle, N. H., June 3. — Editor Forest and 

 Stream: I send to-day a photograph of fish, supposed to 

 be a wall-eyed pike, of which I wrote you April 23. I 

 thought I could get a larger photo, but find this is all the 

 kind taken. Don't know as this will assist you much. I 

 have been unable to obtain and send it before on account 

 of absence. Should like to be informed positively about 

 it as there is still considerable discussion over it among 

 local fishermen. [The photograph represents the wall- 

 eyed pike. The occurrence of this species in the Con- 

 necticut basin is comparatively rare, but recently several 

 announcements have been made of its capture in the 

 main river.] 



WHITE PERCH FISHING. 



Hearing of the fine perch that were being caught in 

 the Potomac, Will Caulfield and I decided to try our luck. 

 We had put off going for nearly a month on account of 

 rain and the condition of the water, but on May 19 we 

 concluded to go no matter how the water might be. We 

 used silk handlines with two hooks and a sinker weigh- 

 ing about two ounces, as the current, up the river, is 

 rather swift. We reached the river about 10 A. M. and 

 procured a boat resembling a canoe, to stem the swift 

 waters. 



The day was a fine one for fishing, being cool and some- 

 what cloudy. We stopped first about 200yds. above the 

 Three Sisters, near Georgetown, where we found the 

 water about 50ft. deep and would certainly have had 

 good fishing, for when we threw in our lines they had 

 not time to touch bottom before each of us hauled in a 

 fish; but on account of blasting operations on the shore 

 we were obliged to move, much to our dislike. Not 

 wishing to be disturbed again we went about one-half 

 mile further up the river and anchored. I suppose we 

 had been there about 15 minutes when I pulled out two 

 perch about six inches long and afterward took one about 

 every three or four minutes, but they were small. We 

 moved out into deeper water, hoping to catch larger fish, 

 but we found that we would have to be satisfied with 

 small ones, as we were baiting with worms only and the 

 large perch seldom bit at them. The best baits for big 

 perch are minnows and clams, especially clams. 



We stopped fishing about noon to eat lunch. About 

 three o'clock the tide began to come in and each of us 

 caught about thirty fish, including some catfish and eels. 

 At 4:30 we pulled down the river against the tide and 

 a stiff breeze, with light hearts and sunburned faces. 



On Decoration Day Mr. Looker fished in about the 

 same water and took eight dozen white perch besides 

 some catfish and eels. 



A curious thing happened at Uncle Cliff '8 with a pair 

 of the catfish which reached the house alive and were 

 put in a bath tub to amuse the children; it was nothing 

 less than a duel with rough, but deadly, weapons. A 

 violent commotion was beard in the night and loud 

 splashing, but we paid little attention to it at the time. 

 Later on TT nc i e Cliff went to the tub to change the water 

 and found the smaller of the two catfish very lively while 

 the other had its mouth open and was stiff in death. 

 Upon examination he found a small roundish hole in the 

 side of the dead fish just behind the breast fin. The 

 smaller cat had driven his spine into a vital part of his 

 enemy and ended the battle which we had heard but did 

 not understand. We boys knew that catfish can cause 

 painful wounds on our hands, but if the poison is deadly 

 enough to kill as tough a thing as the fish itself we will 

 handle them in future with boxing gloves. 



Washington, D. C. PAUL MORRIS. 



Fish in the Hudson River. 



From Major Fred Mather, Superintendent New York 

 Fish Commission, it is learned that shad fishing in the 

 Hudson River has been poor this season. Owing to the 

 unfavorable weather and the cold water the Commission 

 has not been able to secure as many ripe fish as usual. 

 However, the work of fish hatching is going on in the 

 Commission's new car at Rhinecliffe. Many of the shad 

 fishermen along the river are now opposed to the Com- 

 mission, blaming it for the passage of the law which for- 

 bids the use of nets between Saturday night and Monday 

 morning. They therefore refuse to give the Commission 

 their ripe fish. " Mathew Kennedy, State Game Protector, 

 who fishes for shad near Hudson* reports that since May 

 20 he has taken eight salmon weighing from 10 to 251b9., 

 and has returned them to the water as the law requires. 

 Salmon are said to be plentiful in the river. No doubt 

 many of the fish go to market as Maine or New Jersey 

 salmon. The catch of herring, as well as that of shad, 

 has been light. 



"Fish Hog" does not Express it. 



Haverhill, Mass., June 8.— Editor Forest and Stream: 

 I inclose a clipping from the Haverhill Gazette, our local 

 paper: "There was left at Day & Stevens's market, 

 to be dressed to-day, about 200 brook trout, none of them 

 over 2in. long. There is a law which prohibits the catch- 

 ing of trout under a certain siza, and it ought to be en- 

 forced." I have reason to think that the trout came 

 from New Hampshire, in the vicinity of Lake Winnipe- 

 saukee. What is the proper name for such "skinners?" 

 Your paper this year is far ahead of last, and then it was 

 on top. You are doing more for the preservation of 

 game than all the other sporting papers, so-called, 

 together. Wishing you God speed in the good work,— 

 C. II. E. 



Potomac River Notes. 



On the night of June 7, Mr, L, G. Harron seined 125 

 bug-fish or menhaden at Bryan's Point with a seine 125 ft. 

 long. The fish were small— only about 4in. long. It is 

 very uncommon to see so many of them in fresh water so 

 far up the Potomac. Only two adult fish of this kind 

 were caught at the Point during the shad season. The 

 conditions have been peculiar in various respects; few 

 shad came up the river, and the males, as a rule, were 

 very small; during last spring salt-water fish were un- 

 usually plentiful in the lower river. Young alewives are 

 abundant now at Bryan's Point; the water has been full 

 of them for the last fortnight; the largest are about lAin. 

 long, and the fish appear to be remarkablv well fed. — T, 

 H. B. 



Salmon Notes. 



During May salmon were reported as from fair to good 

 at Anticosti, Gaspe, Port Medway, Gaspereaux and White 

 Head. Reports of scattered individuals were also re- 

 ceived from Nova Scotia and Newfoundland. Fish 

 ranged in weight from 10 to 471bs. each. One weighing 

 471bs. is the largest of which we have a record. It was 

 taken in the Restigouche and forwarded to the IT. S. 

 Fish Commission Exhibit, Washington, D. C, where it 

 has been cast and is to be exhibited at Chicago in 1893. 



Indiana Net Curse. 



Fort Wayne, Ind. — Net fishing in our waters ia going 

 on continually and I do not know what to do. There 

 would be lots of fishing here (with hook and line), if nets 

 were barred out — B, E. D. 



