26o 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[Aug. 18, 1906. 
could not ascertain, but I think the distance 
between them is short and the variation in their 
elevations only 20 feet. It must be remembered 
that very few white men have ever been to 
any of these waters, excepting Fish and Wal¬ 
loper lakes. 
The fishing at the Lusk and Cowan resort be¬ 
gins about the middle of May and ends in Oc¬ 
tober. Just as soon as the ice breaks up, the 
trout will rise eagerly to the fly; and there is 
excellent fly-fishing sometimes to be had, even 
during snow storms just before the water 
freezes. 
July is generally the poorest of all months 
for fishing, excepting, of course, the winter 
months, for the fish cannot be taken through the 
ice as they can in some lakes. June and August 
are the two best months for fishing, but Sep¬ 
tember is also good, and is probably the best 
month for all-around sportsmen, as the shooting 
season opens on the first day of that month. 
The weather in May is cold and rainy. In June 
it is uncertain, but mostly fair—cool and liable 
to be showery, but sometimes quite dry. July 
is very likely to be hot and too calm for good 
sport. August is nearly always fine, and the 
fishing during it is great. September is more 
or less showery and cool. The fishing in 
October is likely to be very good, but the 
weather is uncomfortable, especially just before 
the lakes freeze over. 
The preceding information, as far as I am con¬ 
cerned, is mostly second-hand; but 1 believe it is 
entirely reliable. The following, however, is ab¬ 
solutely correct: 
Mr. A. and I arrived at the resort about noon 
of June 25, and fished from 2:30 till 6, and from 
7:15 till 8:45, each of us catching twenty, the 
biggest weighing a trifle over 2 pounds, and 
the average weight being a pound and a half. 
June 26.—It began to rain just as we stepped 
into the boats about 8:30 A. M. Mr. A. caught 
twenty-five, and I twenty-two in the forenoon. 
In the afternoon we took twenty-one each, and 
as drinks for the crowd were bet upon the 
afternoon’s catch, Mr. A. and 1 had to match 
dollars, I winning. Mr. and Mrs. J., of Hong¬ 
kong, arrived during the day. 
June 27.—Rained hard all the morning, hence 
none of us went on the lake. Mr. A. left for 
Kamloops at 1:30, taking with him two boxes 
of fish on ice for our friends in Vancouver. 
Dave sent three boxes of them for sale in Kam¬ 
loops, all having been caught by Mr. A. and 
myself. In the afternoon Dave took me out, 
and Bob (Mr. Cowan) rowed Mr. T. In order 
to add a little excitement to the sport, Mr. T. 
and I fished to see who would have to “set them 
up for the crowd,” but I gave him a handicap 
of three to two on account of my being the 
more experienced trout fisherman. 
(Your readers must not think from these 
statements about drinks that either the writer 
or his friends were of the “tough” order, be¬ 
cause most of the drinks that Dave carried in 
stock were of the “soft” type, although there 
were several bottles of the ardent for those who 
might prefer it.) 
The result of the catch was seventeen for Mr. 
T. and thirty-seven for myself, showing that the 
handicap was insufficient. The fish averaged be¬ 
tween a pound and a quarter and a pound and 
a half in weight. It rained off and on all the 
afternoon, and the weather was cold; but the 
conditions were all right for fishing. 
June 28.-—Cloudy and cold with occasional 
sunshine. Walked over to Walloper Lake with 
Bob, leaving at 9 o’clock and making the two 
miles in 42 minutes. The trail was excellent. 
Fished from 10:00 till 6:00 and caught 104 trout, 
returning 37 to the water, as they were out of 
condition and their having spawned quite re¬ 
cently. 
There is something odd about the spawning 
time of trout; for in adjoining waters the sea¬ 
sons are often quite different, and even in the 
same lake some trout spawn early and others 
late m the season. 
The sixty-seven fish that we saved were packed 
over the trail by Bob in a gunny sack. They 
weighed fully 90 pounds, and were sold at Kam¬ 
loops next day for the benefit of the resort at 
75 cents per dozen. 
Walloper Lake is about a mile long and 
hardly half a mile wide, and its water is quite 
dark. In consequence the fish are much darker 
than those of Fish Lake, and it is said that their 
flavor is not quite so good as that of fish in¬ 
habiting clearer waters. On this account at the 
resort they serve only the fish taken in Fish 
Lake and sell those caught in Lake Walloper. 
The largest fish of the catch weighed only 2 
pounds 2 ounces, but we returned to the water 
many weighing from i l / 2 to 2 pounds, which, 
under favorable conditions, would probably have 
been 30 per cent, or more heavier. The fish did 
not strike as hard as did those of the larger 
lake. Occasionally 1 would get as many as three 
distinct strikes on one cast, and often without 
hooking a fish; and my percentage of loss ran 
unusually high. I landed four doubles (for I 
fished with two flies), and had on as many more 
that I failed to land. There is only one boat 
on the lake, but that is enough, for more would 
soon fish the place out. The fishing there in 
August and September is said to be exceedingly 
fine, although this catch of mine was a record- 
breaker for the lake. I must have lost, or used 
up in this one day twelve or fifteen flies. 
June 29.—Cold and windy, but no rain; caught 
nineteen in forenoon. In the afternoon I gave 
Mr. T. a handicap of two to one. He landed 
nine and I twenty-two. I trolled my flies with 
split shot sinkers attached to the middle loop, 
for it was too rough for casting, and the trout 
lay deep. Average weight of catch was 1 pound 
4 ounces. 
June 30.-—Fished in both forenoon and after¬ 
noon, catching thirty-five, mostly large ones, 
the heaviest weighing 2 pounds. In the fore¬ 
noon I gave Mr. T. a two to one handicap, but 
he took the conceit out of me by beating me on 
an even basis. He went to the upper end of 
the lake, while I did most of my fishing nearer 
to the resort. 
July 1.—This being Sunday, there was quite a 
crowd from Kamloops. They fished in Fish 
Lake, while I went to Walloper Lake. 1 caught 
sixty-nine, putting back twenty-four, while the 
entire crowd on the other lake caught less than 
two dozen. There was too little breeze, and 
the sun shone brightly. One fish weighed al¬ 
most 2 l / 2 pounds. 
July 2.—Caught thirty-five, some by casting, 
but mostly by trolling sunk flies. 
July 3.-—Very calm and hot. Went to Wal¬ 
loper Lake and fished five hours, taking only 
twenty-four. In the evening I rowed for an¬ 
other sportsman on Fish Lake, who caught 
three by trolling and failed to land several more 
that he hooked. The others this day caught 
practically none. 
July 4.—Very calm and hot. Two boats with 
five fishermen were out all forenoon, catching 
three fish between them. Dave and I started 
after 11 o’clock and quit fishing at 4:30, bring¬ 
ing in thirty-five fine trout, most of them being 
caught on a very small spoon above a red- 
hackle. Fished from 7 P. M., catching nine 
more, making the total for the day forty-four, 
the average weight being betweent 1% and 1 y 2 
pounds. 
July 5.—Started at 8:35 and quit at 11:30, 
bringing in sixteen. In the afternoon went out 
for an hour and a half and caught but two; then 
returned to the house and packed my baggage, 
so as to start for Kamloops at 6 o’clock in 
order to take the midnight train for Vancouver. 
My total catch amounted to 468 trout, and I 
fished about nine days out of ten that I spent 
at the lake. I never saw more gamy trout any¬ 
where. They usually jumped clear of the water 
eight to ten times, and once I counted thirteen 
jumps by one fish—an unlucky number, as far 
as the trout was concerned, for I landed it. 
The best flies I found to be the Montreal, 
March-brown, and cow-dung, with the Parma- 
chenee-belle for dark days and evenings. The 
trout seemed to prefer dark flies, and I had no 
luck with the fancy ones, such as silver-doctor, 
butcher and Jock-Scott. It is best for sports¬ 
men to purchase their flies at Vancouver, as 
those sold at Kamloops are mounted on in¬ 
ferior hooks. I lost many fine fish by the break¬ 
ing off of the barbs. 
There are grouse of several varieties in good 
numbers at Fish Lake and vicinity, and one oc¬ 
casionally sees deer and bear. I saw three deer 
feeding along the shore of the lake one after¬ 
noon. 
I have made this paper quite lengthy and de¬ 
tailed for the purpose of convincing American 
sportsmen that British Columbia is an ideal 
country for their outings in the summer and 
early autumn. It affords also good shooting 
on big game, but I have said nothing about this 
kind of sport there, as I have not yet found an 
opportunity to try it. 
No doubt some of your readers after perusing 
this paper will want to designate me as a “fish 
hog,” but I would ask such person, to bear in 
mind the facts that none of the fish were wasted 
and that I had no trout fishing for two years. 
Mr. Lusk says he has no fear that his lake 
will become fished out, but I don’t agree with 
him, unless a limit be placed on the number of 
fish caught per day or the sale of them be 
stopped. He says that the trout in Fish Lake 
never prey upon each other or eat spawn, as 
he has proved by opening ■ them often, the rea¬ 
son being that "the water abounds with small 
white shrimp. 
If the fishing in his lake begins to fail, he can 
send some of his guests to adjoining lakes, for 
it is his intention to place boats in some of them 
in the near future. 
The next time I go to British Columbia I 
shall take with me my canvas folding boat that 
I have owned for more than a year, but have 
not yet put in the water. 
J. A. L. Waddell. 
Fish and Fishing. 
Salmon in the Peribonca. 
Following the recent capture of a sea salmon 
in the Grand Discharge of Lake St. John by 
the well-known guide, John Morel, I hear that 
one of 13 pounds has been killed below the first 
falls of the Peribonca, and that several smaller 
fish, described as grilse, have been caught this 
summer in the same river. Not having seen 
any of these last mentioned fish, I would not 
care to vouch for the absolute correctness of 
their identification, seeing that most of them 
were not larger than many of the ouananiche 
frequenting the Peribonca. Of the larger sal¬ 
mon occasionally reported nowadays from dif¬ 
ferent parts of the Lake St. John country, there 
can be no doubt as to their identity, since no 
ouananiche thereabouts approaches them in size. 
Spawning Habits of the Ouananiche. 
A series of experiments conducted this year 
in the Lake St. John country may cast a new 
light upon the spawning habits of the ouana¬ 
niche. Hitherto there has been much specula¬ 
tion as to why the fish that are found in such 
large numbers in Lake St. John in the spring 
of the year should divide themselves into two 
different shoals, one of which remains in the 
lake itself and in the Grand Discharge through¬ 
out the summer season, while the other dis¬ 
tributes itself among the various rivers flowing 
into the inland sea. It had been pretty correctly 
guessed that the ouananiche that ascended the 
lake’s feeders did so in order to reach their 
spawning grounds, for some of them at least 
were known to do so. Why the laggards which 
remained behind did so, and where and when 
they spawned, are questions which have aroused 
a considerable amount of speculation. Many 
casual observers have expressed the belief that 
some of these fish spawned in the shallow, in¬ 
shore pools of the Grand Discharge itself and 
upon some of the gravelly stretches of the bed 
of Lake St. John, because they are often taken 
there late in the season. I have not yet been 
able to secure any definite proof that well de¬ 
veloped spawn has been found in any of the 
ouananiche taken in these waters late in the 
season. I have opened many of them myself 
coming from these localities and have never 
found in them any spawn at all approaching 
maturity. Not one of those taken this summer 
in the Grand Discharge and opened by me or 
