THE PISHING GAZETTE 
69 
PEBurART 4<, 1893] 
CONTENTS. 
N.B.—All rights reserved in articles published in 
paper. 
On the Dangfer of Introducing Pacific Coast Salmon 
into English Waters . 
The Spring Salmon Rivers of Scotland 
Scotch Notes . 
A Daj's Trout Fishing on a Thames Weir 
Notes and Queries . 
Leistrom Pool, near Armathwaite ... 
A Famous Fox-hunter . 
Brandon Creek. 
A New Prawn Tackle . 
The Lower Thames as a Trout River 
Black Monday . 
Keep Your Lino in the Water ” ... 
Waltoniana. 
Correspondence. 
this 
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TELEPHONE No. 2679. 
SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 4th, 1893. 
ON THE DANGER OP INTRODUCING 
PACIFIC COAST SALMON INTO 
ENGLISH WATERS. 
By Sir Rose Price, Bart. 
It is with regret, not unmixed with alarm, that 
I learn that the Dee (Cheshire) Conservators are 
about to hatch out Pacific Coast salmon eggs 
from the Frazer river, British Columbia. 
Many years ago, in the then infancy of the 
Fishing Gazette, I had occasion to utter a warning 
on this very subject, and I should have thought 
that the habits of Pacific Coast fish would have 
been too well known by this time, owing to the 
greatly increased intercourse with that country, 
for any further warning to be necessary. 
As the Dee Conservators seem to be contem¬ 
plating the infliction of a loss on their river, it 
may not be cut of place if I relate what resulted 
in a far more serious loss to the country on this 
very subject, particularly so as it w'as the first 
record we possess of the Pacific salmon not 
taking the fly, and their not doing so turned out 
a very serious matter for Canada. 
About the time the Americans took Texas and 
California from Mexico, a dispute arose between 
our Government and the United States, as to 
whether, in the grab for territory, Oregon should 
belong to them or us. The Prime Minister of 
the day had a brother commanding one of H.M. 
ships on the Pacific Coast, and he naturally 
wrote out and asked him what sort of a country 
this little-known Oregon was that all the fuss 
was about, and if it was worth our while to try 
and hold it. Now the gallant captain happened 
to be a keen fisherman. He had diligently but 
unsuccessfully flogged most of the rivers on the 
Pacific Coast, that of Oregon included, but not 
a fish would look at him, and in dire disgust he 
answered back, “ Most infernal country and not 
worth having. The salmon ivon’t take a fly.” 
The Minister acted on the brotherly advice, and 
so we lost Oregon for Canada. 
In 1859, I was serving in a battalion of my old 
corps (the Royal Marines) in China, with which 
country we were then at war. We had taken Can¬ 
ton, and the whole force under Sir Charles Strau- 
benzie were quartered in the various yamuns and 
pagodas of that unsavoury city. All thoughts of 
further fighting were at an end, and an order to 
detail three companies for instant embarka tion to 
Vancouvers Island, owing to a frontier dispute 
between the United States and ourselves, was 
hailed with delight by those fortunate enough to 
be among these detailed for the service. 1 was 
most anxious to go myself, but luckily, as it 
turned out afterwards, did not do so, for the war 
broke out again and I came in for lots of fun, 
including a somewhat unpleasant incident at the 
Taku Forts in ’59, where, out of a company of 
fifty-three men that I took into action I had nine¬ 
teen killed or wounded (myself among the latter). 
The fun, however, came in due course, as the 
following year we captured Pekin, and the looting 
of the Summer Palace was about as good fun as 
falls to one’s share in war. The officers ordered 
to Y^ancouver remained there four or five years. 
Many of them were keen anglers, and when we 
again met I eagerly inquired about the fishing. 
Just what years before had happened to the 
Minister’s brother had been their fate. They 
occasionally got good sport in the sea, trolling 
out of a canoe with a spoon, but in the rivers 
absolutely nothing except trout. The salmon 
would not look at a fly. 
I now come to my own personal experience of 
the subject. 
In the summer of 1875 I found myself camped 
on the head waters of the Sacramento in Siskiyon 
County, California. The trout fishing was good, 
and shortly after getting these, the salmon began 
to run up. On arrival they were in good con¬ 
dition, but would not look at a fly, though I tried 
every pattern in a very large assortment. In 
time the river fairly swarmed with them. Not 
hundreds, but thousands crowded all the pools, 
and soon afterwards they became affected with a 
most loathsome form of leprosy, which destroyed 
them absolutely wholesale. 
Prom the Sacramento I moved on to the head 
waters of the McLeod river in the Sierra Nevada 
Mountains, not very far from Mount Shasta. I 
have pitched my tent in many lands, in Asia, in 
Africa, and in North and South America, but I 
think our camp on the McLeod was about as near 
perfection as it is possible to attain. There was 
no dew at night, no mosquitoes; the grove of 
sugar pines {Finns sahioninai) surrounding us 
ran to close on 300ft. high, with a diameter at 
the base of the trees from 7ft. to lift.; the 
pleasant murmuring of running water lulled us 
to sleep ; but, alas, as regards salmon it was the 
old story repeated. Overcrowding, loathsome 
disease, and death. 
From what I learn, all the neighbouring rivers, 
the Shasta, the Klamath, and the Pitt, all suffer 
in like manner, as do nearly all the rivers on the 
Pacific Coast. And yet it is from such a tainted 
source the Dee Conservators propose stocking 
their river. 
If they are determined on introducing entirely 
fresh blood, why do they not take it from the 
Provinces of New Brunswick or Quebec ? The 
Canadian Government, with a foresight and pru¬ 
dence our own would do well to imitate, have 
many fish-breeding establishments from which 
ova could be procured. Some years ago I visited 
one at Tadonoac, at the mouth of the Saguenay 
river, which was admirably conducted. It is 
nearly opposite Rimouski, on the St. Lawrence, 
where the Allan boats call for mails, and would 
be most convenient for the purpose ; but what¬ 
ever they may do in the matter, I protest most 
strongly against the introduction of the Pacific 
Coast salmon into Great Britain or Ireland. 
THE SPRING SALMON RIVERS OF 
SCOTLAND. 
AS THEY ARE. 
{Continued from page 52.) 
By W. Murdoch. 
Of the early salmon rivers of Scotland the 
next in order and the first to be reached north of 
the Tay is the River South Esk of Forfarshire. 
This is a good, I might almost say very fine, little 
spring river naturally, having to it a very good 
strength of spring fish, of which,however, scarcely 
a single one, sad to tell, is allowed to ascend, either 
to afford sporting or for the reproduction of its 
species ; hence it is obvious that the stock, to an 
incalculable extent, must be kept under what the 
natural resources of the river if utilised well 
up to their full capacity would bo capable of pro¬ 
ducing. Netting constantly and at every vantage 
point, sea and inland, completely ruins this river 
in spring and summer. Pollutions and djkes 
also injure it, but these have not upon it such a 
baneful effect as the netting of the lessee, Mr. 
James Johnstone, of Montrose, who, be it known, 
is a member of the Fishery Board for Scotland, 
and whose nets practically farm the whole con¬ 
cern, and keep twenty to thirty miles of first- 
rate character of angling water entirely bereft 
of the presence of spring salmon. The loss con¬ 
sequently in sport and sporting values to the 
proprietors of these waters must be very hea\y, 
but the curious thing is they bear it all so 
meekly. Doubtless from never having had sport 
in their fisheries in the spring they know not how 
to prize it, or feel in the slightest degree from 
the want of it that they are not in the full pos¬ 
session of their rights. Mr. Johnstone’s right 
to catch as many fish as he can is indisputable ; 
he pays rent for ib and who can hinder him ? 
This is one of the many really badly used salmon 
streams of Scotland, but not so had, perhaps, is it 
used as its sister stream, the North Esk, which 
receives such treatment as causes blank astonish¬ 
ment to all who know about it, and which, at any 
rate for the whole fishery’s w'elfare prospectively, 
is no credit to those who have rights in it or any¬ 
thing whatever to do with it. 
wherever there exist obstructions to prevent 
the ascent of the sahnondise, the proprietors of 
the further inland reaches of water are robbed of 
their due, or indeed any share of the fish. Thi.s 
is exactly how it stands with the North Esk. 
This river is naturally to an extraordinary degree 
productive of spring salmon; its average yield of 
fish to the nets annually being estimated at about 
thirty thousand, and this, it must be borne in 
mind, is the whole total of the fish of the river 
that are caught up to the time that the net 
fishing ends. No less than five dams, having in 
connection with them dykes, two of which during 
most of the spring season not a fish can pass, arg 
to be found along the lowermost six miles of the 
river's course. Long before the netting opens 
many thousands of fish are in from the sea and 
forward to these obstructions every year; but 
not being able, by reason of the low temperature 
of the water, to effect a passage and proceed 
further inland, they must needs drop back into 
the pools below, where they remain, to fall a 
prey to the netters whenever the market price i§ 
sufficiently tempting to induce them to take them 
out. I hold the most decided views with regard 
to such a state of matters. I say emphatically, it 
should not be tolerated ; and because they allow it 
to continue from year to year, to the in j ury and loss 
of the many proprietors of rod fishings, in whose 
waters most of the fish are bred, I consider that the 
Scotch Fishery Board are deserving of the utmost 
blame. Long ago, as in duty bound, they ought 
to have seen to the making of the dykes perfectly 
passable—readily so in any state of w'ater, during 
every season of the year. The proprietors of the 
dykes in question catch (or, rather, lease to Mr. 
James Johnstone, of Montrose, by whose netters 
are caught) all the fish throughout the whole 
netting season; and yet, in the waters of those 
same proprietors, are not bred one-tenth, or even 
one-twentieth of these fish. They, of course, pay 
assessment for protection, but the proprietors of 
the angling waters above do the same, and 
when it is in their waters that most of the fish 
spawn, it is an iniquitous law that allows them to 
be bereft of sport, if sportsmen themselves, or have 
