14 8 
roprietors of fishing resorts will find it profitable to advertise 
in Forest and Stream. 
Where to go. 
One important, useful and considerable part of the Forest and 
Stream's service to the sportsmen's community is the information 
given inquirers for shooting and fishing resorts. We make it our 
business to know where to send the sportsman for large or small 
game, or in quest of hie favorite fish, and this knowledge is freely 
imparted on request. 
On the other hand, we are constantly seeking information of this 
character for the benefit of our patrons, and we invite sportsmen, 
hotel proprietors and others to communicate to us whatever may be 
of advantage to the sportsman tourist. 
The Canadian Salmon Rivers. 
As is explained in another column, the following let- 
ter has been sent to us for publication, in order that 
being here printed and thus coming to the attention of 
those whose interests are concerned, other salmon 
anglers may be prompted to communicate to Mr. 
Davison facts and opinions which may corroborate or 
correct the statements and views set forth. Mr. Davi- 
son's address is No. 56 Wall street, New York. 
New York, July 22, 1898. 
Hon. E. E. Tache, 
Ass't Com. of Crown Lands, Forests and Fisheries, 
Quebec, Canada. 
My dear Sir: Complying with your request, I put in 
writing the matters concerning salmon fishing in Can- 
ada, the future preservation of salmon, and the com- 
ments on existing influences tending to diminish the 
supply, which I laid before you orally a few days since. 
I am the more pleased to do this as I understand that 
recent decisions concerning the jurisdiction of the Pro- 
vince place the control of these matters in the hands of 
the Provincial rather than the Federal Government; and 
that the opportunity afforded is to be availed of to ini- 
tiate measures looking toward continued and increasing 
activity in the care of this valuable asset of the Province 
of Quebec. 
As you know, the westerly limit of salmon in Canada 
has been steadily receding. The conditions which af- 
fect the question are constant, nor have they as yet been 
successfully met. The result must be a continued 
diminution in the supply, with the ultimate disappearance 
of salmon as a game and food fish from your waters, if 
indeed not from the entire Atlantic coast. 
The evil has now reached a point which brings the 
end in sight, and the situation is at the critical period — 
so much so indeed that further temporizing will result 
in the near future in a serious loss both of revenue and 
food supply, which it will be difficult to replace. 
A Review of the Past. 
The natural history of the fish justifies this conclusion. 
Before going into it I call to your attention the paper 
prepared for the Canadian Institute by the Rev. W- A. 
Adamson in 1856 on "The Decrease, Restoration and 
Preservation of Salmon in Canada," the interesting char- 
acter of which essay it would be difficult to overestimate. 
In speaking of then attendant conditions he says: 
"It is unnecessary to magnify the importance of this fish 
as an economic production or as an article of commerce. 
As a food It is beyond comparison the most valuable 
fresh-water fish, both on account of the delicacy of its 
flavor and the numbers in which it can be supplied. By 
prudence, a little exertion, and a very small expense 
now (1856) it may not only be rendered cheap and acces- 
sible to almost every family in Canada, but also an article 
of no small commercial importance as an export to the 
United States, in which country, by pursuing the course 
■which Canada has hitherto imitated, this noble fish has been 
almost exterminated." 
Continuing, he points out that twenty-five or thirty 
years before every stream from Niagara Falls to Labra- 
dor and Gaspe Basin abounded with salmon, while at 
the time of his writing none are to be found west of 
Quebec except a few in the Jacques Cartier. He points 
out the natural disposition of man to destroy at all times 
and seasons that which has life and is fit for food, refers 
to the neglect to construct fishways in the dams; and 
points out how (at that time) the St. Marguerite and 
Petit Saguenay, the Escoumain, Port Neuf, Rimouski, 
Matis and others rivers were blocked by dams. 
A somewhat earlier paper by W, Henry, Esq., in- 
spector general of hospitals, on the habits of the salmon 
family, also contains much of interest and warning. He 
speaks of the fish as being then still found in the Ken- 
nebec and the Connecticut, and of an occasional stray 
fish in the Hudson and the Delaware. He refers to the 
fact that -at the time of his writing many thousands as- 
cended the Ottawa, while a large body pushed up the 
main river all the way to Lake Ontario, and following 
the north shore of the lake, were often speared in the 
Bay of Quinte and at the mouth of the Trent, and 
caught in considerable numbers about Toronto in the 
streams running into the northwest extremity of Lake 
Ontario. He speaks of seeing a salmon leap in 1833 in 
the Niagara River, when crossing the ferry just below 
the Falls., though it was then already a rare occurrence, 
and he begs for "some legislative protection for sal- 
mon" as being "much required in Canada," stating that 
their numbers are "sensibly diminishing." This diminu- 
tion he places at a loss of a quarter of the whole within 
the ten years preceding his writing. 
In a valuable paper on fishing in New Brunswick, by 
Col. Sir J. E. Alexander, F. R. G. S. and A. R. S., writ- 
ten in the fifties, the author, speaking of the Miramichi, 
says it should be "better protected and not poached, as 
we observed it was." Al*o that it has always seemed to 
him that "there was wonderful shortsightedness or re- 
missness in many quarters as to the preservation of fish, 
particularly of the best of all, the salmon." Says they are 
"now sensibly diminishing yearly." Mentions mill dams 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
which lack fish ways, nets set across the stream barring 
the fish from the rivers, and the spear and torch com- 
pleting the work of destruction "at a time too when 
the fish were quite unfit for food" — on the spawning beds 
and after spawning. 
The same author, speaking of the St. Johns in New 
Brunswick, then an excellent salmon river, says that 
not a fish was caught above the dam of the Nashwaak, 
"where for forty-six miles they used to be in abundance"; 
and mentions that on the Nerepis, another tributary, 
there was no dam, with the result that a large number 
were barreled at the mouth of the river annually. 
Speaking of the Salmon River, another tributary of the 
St. Johns, he records the destruction of its fish also, by 
a mill dam. 
Also I call your attention to the report of the Commis- 
sioners of Crown Lands of Canada for the year i860, 
when the protection and regulating of the salmon fish- 
eries in lower Canada was for the first time undertaken. 
It mentions an immediate "increasing run of salmon 
into the principal breeding rivers," and "hopes 
for a vigorous persistence in the policy approved as 
beneficial." 
Finally in the interesting volume (edited by Col. Alex- 
ander, published in i860), "Salmon Fishing in Canada" 
(by a resident), which deals with -the author's angling 
experiences from about 1840 to about i860, the author 
says on this general subject: "It is, however, a regret- 
able fact that the extermination of this noble fish has been 
commensurate with the civilization and settlement of 
the country * * * and it is no small reflection upon 
the legislatures of the country that they have suffered 
such a valuable article of commerce to be so wantonly 
and recklessly destroyed." 
Speaking of the Godbout in the year 1853, this author 
mentions that during the whole of that season "the Hud- 
son Bay Company had twelve barrier nets across dif- 
ferent parts of this beautiful stream. Some were actu- 
ally in the very best of the pools. A suicidal policy," etc. 
Results of the Policy of Conservation. 
This being then the record and warning of those times, 
let us consider how far the policy initiated in i860 of 
conservation has been effectively applied, and with what 
results. 
The record to-day is not an encouraging one. Sal- 
mon have disappeared since then substantially from every 
river west of the Saguenay (there is an occasional salmon 
still in the Malbaie [Murray], but the exception may 
prove the rule, I suppose), and there are, moreover, at 
least several rivers which can be named between Tadou- 
sac and the Atlantic on both the north and south shores 
which are no longer much, if at all, frequented by 
them. 
The next batch of your rivers from which the salmon 
will now very soon disappear are the six tributaries of 
the Saguenay (or seven, counting the little Riviere 
Rouge, which, as I mentioned to you, salmon appear to 
run into). These six, the a Mars, Eternitv, St. Jean 
(Chicoutimi), Petit Saguenay, and the North and East 
St. Marguerites, are exposed as to their salmon supply 
to an extreme of peril by reason of the fish being com- 
pelled on leaving the St. Lawrence to pass through the 
waters of the Saguenay before reaching their respective 
rivers. During the past three years the poaching evil 
has increased enormously in this vicinity. As was said 
to me by a well-informed habitant of the locality. "lis se 
sont enrages a rayec." This has been attributed, I regret 
to say, to a local slackness in relation to the enforcement 
of the Government regulations, while prosecutions of 
detected offenders have been substantially valueless. 
For example, I might cite a well-kno.Avn case a couple 
of years or so ago of eighteen individuals summoned 
before a magistrate, and who upon conviction were 
fined $2 each, they having taken (in that instance by net- 
ting a pool) thirty-two salmon. 
One of the troubles in the main Saguenay arises 
from the fact that there are a number of small sailing 
vessels (goellettes, schaloupes, etc.) regularly engaged 
in the trade of carrying cord wood to Quebec from the 
Saguenay. Habitants in the adjoining townships cut 
and stack the cord wood at convenient places on either 
bank of the river, and these small vessels, taking con- 
siderable time to the trip, often anchoring at night, 
proceed down the river collecting the wood at one 
place and another, and transporting it to Quebec for 
sale. It is hardly exaggeration to say that during the 
past three years it has become almost a matter of course 
for many of these boats (as also for other schaloupes 
belonging in the Saguenay villages) to carry a net as 
part of their equipment. In the early morning, as 
they progress down the river, the embouchures of the 
tributaries and other likely spots are investigated; if 
salmon be found a net approximately closing the mouth 
of the river is promptly set from a convenient point, and 
in a few hours a substantial return in salmon is the 
result, especially if there be a spring tide. 
To give you actual example. This present season 
(1898) the mouth of the river next to the one I fished 
was netted the day before the lessee arrived; while 
as for our own river we were much interested to learn 
(ten days after arrival) that it had been netted on the 
morning of Monday, June 27 (we arrived somewhat 
after midnight on the 25th). Indeed on passing down to 
the mouth of the river in a canoe after midnight on the 
25th I saw in the distance the anchor light of the goel- 
lette, which there is every reason to believe was the boat 
which netted the embouchure twenty-four hours after- 
ward. 
Habits of the Fish. 
Were it not for the natural history of the salmon, one 
might look with a little more equanimity on the de- 
strpction of the fish in a particular river, but the facts 
relating to salmon have become, by long and patient 
study of this now best understood of fish, too dear 
and too well established to admit of doubt. It is not too 
much to say that the closing of a river by a barrier 
ret or mill dam for five years will definitely extermi- 
nate the fish in that river for all time until the particular 
river is restocked, and that it will take four years of 
rigid protection from the time of thorough restocking 
before the river is restored to any productiveness. 
[Aug. 20, 1898. 
Assume, as is now more or leas conceded, that each 
river has substantially a "double supply" of fish — by rea- 
son of a portion of the smolts not going to sea until the 
second year (in the third year of their existence), as 
also from the probable fact of the non-return until the | 
next year of a certain proportion of the grilse of each 
year; even with this allowance, five years of either 
closing by a mill dam or barrier net, or five years of 
thorough extermination by netting on the coast and 
in the main river, with subsequent netting in the pools 
and ultimate spearing on the spawning beds, must ne- 
cessarily exterminate the fish of that river. 
The salmon, while a sea-going fish, nevertheless has 
as a distinguishing characteristic the instinct of return- 1 
ing each to its own river. 
Spawning occurring during the autumn, the young 
of the earl}' spring pass a period of at least a year as . 
fry and parr, a second period of about a year as parr and • 
smolts, and visit the sea for the first time at the end of 
the second or during the third year of their existence, re- 
turning from their first visit as grilse, and from their [ 
second visit as full-grown salmon, to spawn in their 
turn in the river of their birth. 
Assuming that there are at any given time not in 
excess of two years' supply for the particular river at| 
sea, and three years' supply in the river (in the various 
stages of development mentioned above), it would fol-' 
low that persistent netting and spearing or exclusion 
for five years will definitely remove any given river « 
from the category of a salmon river; and since, except, 
for the accidental wandering of an occasional fish, no 
other salmon will enter the river, it is apparent, as said 
above, that a river once despoiled cannot be reinstated 
without restocking, nor until the fourth year thereafter 1 
will it produce full-grown fish. 
Results of Poaching. 
It may be asked, however, whether poaching can be 
so persistent as to take all the fish. Consideration of 
the facts answers the inquiry substantially in the affirm 
mative. Salmon, in the spring as the water warms, 
come in from the sea. Reaching shallow water, they 
coast along the shores until they reach the river in 
which they belong. Ordinarily they wait at its mouth for 
a day or two, sometimes even till a spring tide aids 
or induces their entering. On entering their own river 
they mount a rapid or two and reaching a pool select, 
each a spot at its foot— often in front of some submerged 
rock, which will divide the current for them— awaiting 
some rise in the river, from local rain or other cause, to 
impel them to mount again to upper pools. As the 
summer progresses they drift to the spawning beds and 
lie more or less inactive. The majority (probably) re- 
turn late in the fall to the sea. A certain proportion,' 
however, remain in the river, and return to the sea only 
in the early spring (another evidence of the probability: 
of there being a two years' supply of salmon for each; 
river at sea at any given time). 
All this is well understood, and in it is found the 
opportunity for the destruction of the fish by improper 
taking which has now become so serious an evil. 
Peaching Methods. 
Salmon poaching in Canada may be subdivided rough- 
ly into four classes: (a) the illegal setting of nets under. 
Government fishery licenses — i. e., keeping them set 
longer than permissible and at forbidden times; (b): 
illegal netting from points on the coast and at the em- 
bouchures; (c) netting the pools in the river themselves;, 
and (d) spearing. 
The first two classes are substantially the same. The 
fish coasting along the shore of the Gulf or the St.' 
Lawrence run the gauntlet at numberless projecting 
points of either a licensed fishery net or of an un- 
authorized net, extending from the shore. These fish- 
eries are often or generally situated, and the illegal net- 
ting is done principally at the mouths of rivers, where 
the fish belonging to the particular river naturally trend 
still closer inshore and turn into the embouchure. If a 
salmon has fortunately been too far a-stream to be taken.i 
or has succeeded in freeing himself from the net and 
doubling the end of it (and fish are not infrequently taken 
on the fly bearing the net marks on their necks), and has] 
been fortunate enough to pass each net of the many 
between the point where he first reached the Atlantici 
coast and the mouth of his own river, he then becomes 
exposed to the further perils mentioned. 
Necessarily the further to the westward a given salmon 
must proceed before reaching the river in which he 
belongs, the more nets he must dodge. The westward, 
stream of fish steadily diminishes as it proceeds. The 
salmon belonging in the Esquimaux may lose but a very 
small percentage of their number before they reach 
that river, while but an inconsiderable fragment of those' 
destined for a river well to the westward can hope to 
elude the dangers of the ever recurring net. 
Assuming, however, that a fish has escaped; has 
reached his river; has not been taken (while sporting 
at its mouth or attempting to enter) by the poacher's 
hastily dropped barrier net, or the illegally constructed or 
improperly set "licensed" net; has mounted to a pool; and 
with his companions is lying at its foot. It hardly takes ten 
minutes to stretch a net across the upper end of the 
pool, allowing it to drop throughout its length to the 
bottom of the river and with its top level with the surface. 
Under even unfavorable circumstances the most that] 
need be done in the way of preparation for stretching 
the net would be to fell a tree on each side of the) 
river so that their trunks will extend down into the 
water, that the ends of the net may be attached to 1 
them. The poachers, passing then down to the foot of 
the pool on either side, by beating the water with 
saplings and throwing stones into the center of the 
stream, start every fish up stream in alarm. A few sec- 
onds afterward all the salmon in the pool are fast in the 
net. To draw the net takes but a few minutes. In-, 
deed I am credibly informed that the entire operation, 
of netting a pool ean be thoroughly performed with 
ease in half an hour, substantially without noise and 
without lights. i ' 
This routine may be a little varied by the local cir- 
cumstances of a particular pool, but is substantially the 
same in most cases, and it is apparent that it is wholly 
