126 
FOREST_ ANP_ STREAM. 
[AVG. l8, tQOO. 
fished it and killed a 19-pound fish on the same water, hi5 
own, and in the afternoon five fish from 8)4 to 24}^ pounds 
on the Sage water. So far the fish killed seem to have 
keen fieh that were nipped as they were passmg up the 
river on the flood, and were attracted by some hy as 
they passed, for there is no evidence that they "lay, as 
the river men say, long in any of ihe pools. I had one 
lesson to show that a man should never put his fly on 
the water of this river, or any part of it, at any time, un- 
less it is in condition to kill. 
The Alford water is late water— that is, it is rapid when 
kigh, and until the water gets dov.-n the fish do not he 
in it. Even at this time it is considered about 2 feet above 
fishing condition, and several days ago, when it was still 
lligher, a salmon took my fly in it, and he has got it 
yet, so far as I know. 
I came in to lunch and stood my rod against a tree at 
the door, which was all fight enough, but I left my leader 
on it, which was wrong. Usually I take the leader oft 
and put it in the damp box, but on tliis occasion I did not, 
for I had thought I would f ut on a fresh one, as there 
appeared to be a weak place in the one on my line. After 
lunch Mr. Mitchell and I took our rods and walked down 
to the canoes, and as the man pushed out I unhooked the 
flv fro*n the reel bar and cast it on the water near the 
canoe, and a salmon happened to be there where one was 
mot expected, and I found that what had appeared to be a 
weak place in the leader really was one, though it might 
have killed the fish had the leader been wet instead of 
dry. 
Groen Smoked Salmon. 
The rainy Sunday morning had made way for a bright 
sunny noon at the time our meri poled us up and across 
the river to Camp Harmony to dine. 
Stanford White made fbe plans for this camp, perched 
high above the water, and it is about as perfect as a 
fishing camp can be made. The veranda on one side 
almost overhangs a portion of the home pool, giving an 
excellent opportunity for the fisherman who may be 
sitting on it to watch the movements of the fish in this 
pool, and the view down river is particularly fine. 
• Returning one evening to the bouse, I met Mr. White 
coming down from the upper portions of the river, and 
he reported very indifferent success, but later I saw in the 
score book at the Ristigouche Salmon Club that Mr. 
White, having learned that the salmon had appeared in 
considerable numbers up river, had again gone to the 
upper pools of the club and killed, as I now recall it, 
something hke twenty-three salmon. But I am getting 
away from the dinner at Camp Harmony, where, in my 
estimation, the chief dish was a green smoked salmon. 
One gentleman went so far as to say he preferred the 
green smoked salmon to fresh salmon. Anyway, I liked 
the fish so well that I asked Mr. Sage to call up the 
Indian who officiated at the smoke house to tell me how- 
he smoked the fish, and here is how it is done, as I 
noted it on the back of an envelope : Split the fish down 
the back, take out the back bone, put in pickle of salt, 
molasses and water. Molasses one-half cup, salt and 
water enpugh to make brine and cover fish. Leave fish 
about two hours in pickle, then open fish, put skewer 
across it on skin side to hold it open and flat, rub a little 
sugar and pepper in flesh side and smoke two days with 
smoke from beech wood. For green smoked salmon small 
Ssh should be selected. The smoke house is made of 
bark with an opening in front near the bottom for the 
smoke fire, and a door at the back for putting in and 
taking our the fish. 
Unfortunately, few, comparatively, will be able to ap- 
preciate just how good green smoi*ed salmon is, for it will 
not bear transportation, and therefore must be eaten where 
salmon are killed, or contiguous thereto. Mr. Benedick 
said at the dinner table that he would at least try the 
experiment of taking some of the smoked salmon to 
Albany, but later the Indians said, even for that di^ance, 
the fish should be smoked another day. when t would 
keep for a week. 
Camp Harmony After Dinner. 
It is the most natural thing in the world that in a sal- 
mon fisherman's camp the conversation after dinner over 
cigars and pipes should hja of salmon and salmon fishing. 
Daniel Adams, one of my canoe men, had told me of 
killing a 15-pound salmon with worm bait while fishing 
for trout, and he knew of other trout fishermen who had 
killed salmon in like manner, and of eel fishermen who 
iia(J killed salmon on cut bait. Alexander Mowat had 
assured me on more than one occasion that salmon would 
take worms on the bottom, and I mentioned the instances 
that had been related to me. Judge Hamilton contrib- 
•nted the fact that his father had killed salmon on min- 
xiow bait, and Mr. Ayer practically closed the discussion 
by saying that everything went to prove that salmon took 
the fly because they thought it something to eat, and they 
took it because they wanted to eat it if it proved palatable. 
Mr. Mitchell said he had seen three salmon take the fly 
under the most favorable circumstances for clear observa- 
tion. In each case the fish eame up behind the fly slowly, 
as minnows have been seen to swim after a bait drawn 
through the water, and advancing without hurry or 
dash, seized it and turned down toward the bottom 
with it. 
Mr. Dean Sage brought out a book of souvenirs, a few 
of which I 'have before me as I write, and which 1 
will mention separately. 
One is a well-worn Jock-Scott, hooked into a sheet of 
note paper bearing the following legend : "This fly was 
taken from Ae lip of a salmon weighing 2^/2 pounds, which 
rose to a fly cast in the Upsalquitch Pool, Ristigouche 
River, Quebec. The salmon was killed by Mr. Bryan at 
7:30 P. M. Wednesday, June a8, 1883. and in addition to 
the discovery of this fly being attached to him, it was 
observed that he had been presumably gaffed, there being 
a wound in his shoulder an inch long, unhealed. This 
fly was identified on Thursday by Dr. Ferber, of New 
York, as one belonging to him with which he had hooked 
a salmon Tuesday, June 27, 1883, at 10 A. M., which 
broke the casting line and escaped, after being struck 
with the gafi. Dr. Ferber hooked this fish in the Alford 
Pool, half a mile below where he was killed next day 
Mr. Bryan. ' Dean Sage, Camp Harmony, June 29. 
A large slver-doctor on single hook attached to a 
Iwolcen casting line had this on its wTd.ppet'. 
'The inclosed fly and casting line was fast under the 
lowest jaw of a 24-pound saimon (outside), killed by 
Dean Sage on the camp pool, mouth of Upsalquitch, Ris- 
tigouche River, N. B., June 16, 1^92. Ihe lly had evi- 
dently been in the salmon for several days, as the wound 
made bv it was suppurating." 
The casting line or leader appears 10 be nearly com- 
plete, and I imagine from what is left that scarcely more 
than' a length or two of gut is broken from it. At the 
breach the gut is smaller than at any other portion of the 
leader that remains, and quite likely the small length of 
gut was overlooked by its former owner when he placed it 
on his reel line. If the fish that he foul -hooked did 
not show itself before its escape with the fly, I expect 
that to this day the fisherman to whom this fly once 
belonged fondly imagines that when he lost his fly and 
leader he lost a 40-pound salmon, even if he did not at 
the time estimate it at 50 pounds. Mr. Sage's memoran- 
dum answers a question that is frequently asked: "How 
do fish get rid of hook.s that are fastened in their mouths 
when they break tackle and escape?" "The wound made 
by it" (the hook of the fly) "was suppurating." That 
tells the whole story, for when suppuration has proceeded 
to a certain point, the hook would come out of itself. 
One more quotation from the legends in the treasure 
book and T will be content for the present. This time 
it is a Jock-Scott in fair condition, for it would yet kill 
fish. This is the explanation of its retirement: 
"With this Jock- Scott fly. tied by Forest & Son, Kelso, 
Scotland, I killed in the Ristigouche River, Canada, in 
June, 1883, besides three fish that broke loose after being 
hooked, the following salmon : 20^, 20, 20K, 24>4, 20, 
22, 26, 23, 38, 12^, 27, 28. Twelve in all, weighing 
282 pounds. — Dean Sage." 
As the fish averaged 233^ pounds, in spite of the 1254- 
pound one, the twelve were above the average of June 
fish in the Ristigouche, as Mr. Mitchell tells me a fair 
avsrage for the early runs ts 22 pounds. As a contrast to 
this fly, I may say that I put on a new Jock-Scott this 
season and killed one fish of 24^ pounds on it, and there- 
after *Re fly was scarcely recognizable, it had been so 
chewed and mangled by the fish. The salmon did not 
show above the water after taking the fly until it was 
gaffed, and it was not until I saw the fly that I Imew 
what he had been so busy about that gave him no time to 
leap. One wing was gone, and the jungle-cock from 
the other and the body of the fly looked as though it had 
iDcen chewed by a puppy instead of a fish, and it was not 
sufficiently respectable to again offer to the king of 
fishes. 
Drifting. 
The chief duty of a salmon river guardian is to pre- 
vent poachers from drifting the salmon pools. No light 
is required for this style of poaching a salmon river, and 
it is done almost silently and so quickly that a guardian 
may be alert on one portion of his beat and still the 
drifters may get in their deadly work and escape from 
another portion of the same beat. Mr. Mitchell owns a 
pool on the Upsalquitch not far from the main rivA, and 
one day I killed a fighting fish in it, and the next morning 
Mr. Mitchell went up to fish it while I went down to the 
Grog Island Pool on the main river. During the fore- 
noon one of my men, Daniel Adams, said he feared Mr. 
Mitchell would not have success, for it was in the air the 
evening before that the Upsalquitch 'was to be drifted 
that night, and this led me to question him on the sub- 
ject. There was a time in all probability when drifting a 
salmon pool was considered a legitimate occupation by 
nearly every able-bodied man on the river. It was the 
easiest and cheapest way to get salmon for home con- 
sumption fresh or to salt down for winter, or to sell, and 
they considered that salmon came into the rivers for the 
benefit of the settlers quite as much as for the sportsmen 
who leased the fishing from the Crown. I do not propose 
to discuss the right or wrong of the procedure, but drifting 
was practiced more or less openly, so far as the settlers 
were concerned, for apparently they were all tarred with 
the same stick. For the benefit of the uninitiated, I may 
say that drifting is practiced by stretching a net across 
the river at the head of a salmon pool with a canoe at 
either end of the net and drifting it through the pool. 
Daniel said that a drift net could be operated at a pinch 
by one man in one canoe, though two made better work of 
it. On the very water where we fished, he told me he had 
known thirty-six salmon to be taken in two drifts, the 
largest a fish of 40>4 pounds.. 
The drifters became guardians under the new order of 
things, and they were the very best of men to locate nets 
when they did their duty, but it was hard to break away 
from old practices and associates who had not become 
guardians, and so one year when I was on the river the 
guardian on the opposite shore was seized by the drifters, 
bound and gagged and thrown into the bushes, while the 
drifters did their work, and later it was found that the 
binding was done by a preconcerted arrangement with the 
drifters. Daniel, however, when he changed to a guardian 
from being a drifter, determined to do his whole duty, and 
he told me that on one occasion the Ristigouche Salmon 
Clul» sent for him and said that it had come to the 
knowledge of the club that there was a drift net located 
on a certain portion of the river, and if he captured the 
net the club would pay him $100, and if he captured 
the net and the men they would pay him $150. How he 
got the net I will tell as nearly as possible in his own 
words : "I got a man to help me, and we were both sworn 
in as officers, for I had at that time ceased to be a 
guardian. The first night we came down to that clump of 
trees just below young Dawson's house, which you can 
see on the other side of the river, and pulled our canoe 
out. It was not fully dark, for we could see the people 
going along the road to church, it being Sunday night. 
We had not been in hiding long before we heard the 
sounds of leads going out over the side of a canoe, and 
then we put our canoe in the water and paddled down 
stream. We found one canoe out in the stream with two 
men in it, and another canoe on this shore with one man 
in it. They saw us and all paddled for the shore, the 
single man being so close to land that he was away before 
we got near him. but the other two had a close call, though 
they escaped. They left both canoes on the bank and ran 
for it, and there was no use of our trying to catch them 
in the dark. We did get the net and found one salmon in 
it, and we took the net to the club and were then paid 
$100." I told him he was fortunate in getting his re- 
ward after only one short evening's vyork, when perhaps 
he expected me to tell him thac u was a clever piece of 
detective work, but I had been informed that drift nets 
cost $8 each, and 1 could not help it if my thoughts d.d 
wander to the possibility that if Daniel and his assis.ant 
had not been perfectly reliable as special guardians, there 
was a clear profit of $18.40 to each of the five men en- 
gaged that night. Also, I did wish to ask why the canoes 
left on the bank were not captured, and by this means 
the owners found, but it is not always best to ask too many 
questions that might prove troublesome when you are 
seeking certain kinds of information, for the foun;ain of 
information might suddenly dry up and leave your thirst 
for knowledge unquenched. 
Without doubt there will be much sympathy for the 
men who settled on the banks of the river in the wilder- 
ness to subdue it and make homes for themselves under 
adverse conditions, for they owned the land and were not 
permitted to fish for salmon in the streams upon which 
their farms abutted. The fishing in the whole river was 
leased by the Crown to Col. Bridges for fifty dollars, cis I 
now remember the sum, for the Crown at that time 
claimed to control the salmon fishing in the rivers of 
the Province, and it is little wonder that the early settlers 
and their sons, who were forced to become expert canoe 
men, also become expert salmon net drifters. 
Since the courts decided that a settler owned the fishing 
to the middle of the stream on which his farm touched, 
many settlers derive a handsome income from leasing 
their salmon fishings, and the farmers and their sons have 
not forgotten under the new order of things how to 
manage a drift net and a canoe at the same time if the 
night is right for the purpose. As a matter of fact, I am 
told that there is now very little drifting. The men are 
employed as guardians and as canoe men, and it is more 
profitable to follow in a path that does not lead to a court 
of justice that deals out punishment for illegal fishing. 
Setting Poles. 
The poles used by the men to push the canoes up 
stream are iron shod, and the Ristigouche is a highway 
for canoes and scows when the fishing season opens. The 
fishing in Grog Island Pool, when the water is high is 
close in shore at one point where the shore is very rocky, 
and often when I have been fishing there, canoes and 
scows would pass up river at intervals during the day. 
You can hear the "click," "click" of the iron-shod poles a 
considerable distance as the men pole upward. The white 
men pole up past you within short casting distance with- 
out a break in the "click," "click," but when the canoes 
are manned by Indians they will reverse their poles before 
they get very near to you, using the wooden end in the 
water, which makes no noise at all. Often I have taken 
my attention entirely from my fishing to watch the In- 
dians. I imagine the stern man takes his cue from the 
man in the bow. for there is no spoken word that I have 
been able to hear. Both poles are reversed as though 
they were operated by a single lever, and sil«ice comes 
for a time, and then the "click," "click" is resumed some 
distance above you. I have yet to see a white man reverse 
his setting pole at the point I have mentioned. 
Motion in Salmon Fly. 
Mr. Henry P. Wells in the "American Salmon Fisher- 
man" gives directions for casting in salmon fishing and 
the manipulation of the fly afterward : 
"When the cast is complete, his rod will point across 
the current. Retaining the rod in that position, its tip 
still pointing in the same direction, he causes that part of 
his rod to vibrate up and down in a perpendicular plane 
through an amplitude of about one foot, and with a 
rapidity of vibration about double that of his pulse. When 
the line where it enters the water appears to gently slap 
its surface at every downward vibration of the tip of the 
rod. the motion is correct. 
"The fly is now acted on by three forces: first, the cur- 
rent, tending to sweep it down stream; second, the re- 
straining power of the line, tending to hold it back, and, 
third, the vibratory motion of the tip of the rod. The re- 
sult is that the fly describes an arc of a circle of which 
the tip of the rod is the center, and the line the radius, 
and that it travels this path by a succession of impulses 
and halts, timed by the rate of vibration of the tip of the 
rod. When the fly moves, its motion draws the wings and 
hackles together; when it halts, they expand. Thus the 
parts mentioned seem to open and close, something like an 
umbrella, and a very life-like and attractive appearance 
is given to the fly." 
I have never seen but one man fishing for salmon who 
did not vibrate his rod in the manner indicated by Mr. 
Wells. All the sportsmen do it, and all the canoe men 
do it, so far as I have observed, and it is really a 
study to note the different degrees of vibration given to 
the rod by different fishermen. I have done it myself 
until this year, for I have always accepted as true that this 
vibration did open and shut the wings and hackles of the 
fly. Two years ago I became satisfied that in the Risti- 
gouche the current was so strong in June that it did not 
permit the hackles and wings to open as I have believed 
they would when the rod was vibrated. This year I ex- 
perimented much more thoroughly, and could not see that 
the feathers of the fly did anji.hing but cling to the shank 
of the hook, and so said to Mr. F. W. Ayer, whom I con- 
sider one of the best salmon fishermen who fish the 
river. He .said that he did not vibrate his rod at any 
time; that the current was all sufl^cienr to give the fly a 
life-like appearance, and finding that the motion did not do 
what I had always believed it would do, I stooped 
vibrating the rod as a saving of energy. To be sure, from 
habit I would find myself vibrating the rod at times b t 
after a day or two I rarely did it, Mr. Ayer argued that 
slightly hooked fish and clean misses came from the 
vibrated fly. That the fish started for the fly in a certain 
position, and before he reached it it had been moved a 
hand's breadth and so there was a chance for a miss, being 
foul-hooked or slightly hooked. Be this as it may, what 
is the use of expending energy to keep your rod in mo- 
tion, up and down, up and down, all day long, if it adds 
nothing to the attractiveness of the fly at the end of 
j'our leader? Possibly in more sluggish rivers it may be 
desirable to vibrate the rod. but if I were to fish the Risti- 
gouche for fifty seasons, I would never again make a 
oractice of vibrating the rod. I do not know how it may 
be on the Dartmouth, the Moise and other rivers Mr 
