378 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[Sept. 8, 1906. 
Some Salmon Freaks. 
Why do salmon take improbable lures when 
they refuse to look at the most attractive and 
popular fly for that particular river? There 
were several cases as to salmon taking curious 
things for his amusement—I can call it by no 
other name—during my summer outing in New¬ 
foundland this season. I give detail account of 
there curious freak takes, as told me by re¬ 
sponsible fishermen. A Mr. Ross, of New York, 
and a friend from Philadelphia, while fishing 
the Salmonier, saw a salmon take a large 
devil’s darling-needle, or dragon-fly, while it 
was passing over the surface of a pool, where 
they had taken two grilse but no big salmon, 
after having fished for some hours. They said 
it was a clean break and a sudden disappearance 
of the dragon-fly. 
The second on my record happened to myself 
while fishing Harry’s Brook. After fishing all 
the afternoon without success, using all of my 
most taking flies and tried patterns, I was about 
giving the pool up for the day, as it was about 
7 P. M.. when a small trout became entangled 
on my fly while slowly reeling in to clear the 
hook. I was astonished to see a big swirl, and 
a rush of a fish for the trout. The trout was 
taken as clean off my hook as if it had been a 
minnow in the mouth of a black bass. From 
what I could see of the salmon as he rushed the 
trout head on, 1 should think he would have 
touched the scales ai 20 pounds. 
The other cases wei a told me by Mr. Dagget, 
of Boston, a well-known salmon fisherman, who 
makes his headquarters at Tomkin’s, on the 
Little Codroy. He stated to me as an actual 
fact, that one of the Tomkin boys, who act as 
guides, and whom he had always considered 
truthful in his statements as to fish and fish 
stories, told him he saw a large salmon take a 
swallow and kill it as it flew over th' surface 
of the pool he was fishing on this season. He 
also related to me a story of a big one he took 
on the Codroy. It seems that Mrs. Dagget held 
high hook as to salmon caught as to weight. 
Not to be outdone, he found a pool where there 
reposed a big fish, which had been fished for for 
a number of days; but nothing seemed to appeal 
to his refined tastes. Mr. Dagget told his wife 
to come to the pool with him and see him take 
the fish. He tried his whole outfifit of flies 
without a sign. If aiTything, the salmon backed 
away from the fly. He was about to give him 
up in disgust, when his eye caught on a great, 
gaudy fly only used as a sign in a fishing tackle 
window, and which he only used to show 
strangers as a joke. He told his wife, “I will 
give that salmon a good scare.” No sooner had 
it struck the water, than there was a rush and 
a splash, and after a short half hour the big 
one had succumbed to a great, gawky, hideous 
monstrosity in the shape of a fly. 
Why are these things thusly? C. D. W. B. 
Babylon, L. I. 
[Our correspondent is not the first angler to 
be puzzled by the freaky ways of the salmon. 
Indeed these idiosyncrasies of his majesty—this 
frequent happening of the unexpected, the 
novelty of experience, the movements prompted 
by inexplicable reasons—make up in large 
part the fascination of salmon fishing. Perhaps 
out of their abundant experiences on the rivers, 
some of our salmon fishing readers may throw 
light on the problem presented. As pertinent 
we quote a communication from Viscount de 
Poncins recently published in the London Field, 
as follows: 
“We can, I think, take for granted that: (1) 
a salmon, given his rapid growth, is of necessity 
a very greedy brute; (2) nobody knows what he 
is feeding upon in the depths of the sea; (3) he 
never takes a fly at sea; (4) he takes the salmon 
fly in rivers; (5) he takes better when newly 
arrived in the river. I would not dare to say 
that it does not happen sometimes that a salmon 
will take a fly out of sheer curiosity, but if teasing 
them was of any use. I think the golden rule 
not to cast too often over a fish, but rather to 
‘give him a rest’ every now and then, would 
hardly hold good. 
“I think that the strange thing which is called 
a salmon fly is the representation of nothing at 
all to them. But one thing is sure: the food 
they can get in a river is certainly quite different 
in appearance from what they are accustomed to 
get in the sea. If not, they would take a fly, 
i. e., be deceived, just as well in the sea as any¬ 
where else. It is because it is quite unlike any¬ 
thing they are accustomed to get that they do 
not take it at sea. Given that there they have 
their own regular food, whose appearance and 
general aspect they know too well, they do not 
venture to try anything new, however, gorgeous 
and attractive it may look in our tackle box. 
“When a salmon is making his way up a river 
he must think that he is in a very strange place, 
and that nothing can be compared to what he 
has been used to in the sea. If looking for food, 
he must, at first, look for his own ordinary food. 
There is none in the river; then he is obliged 
to change his diet and find out what may be got 
there for himself. There is our chance with the 
fly. because, before he has found out what may 
do for dinner, he is found, in the midst of so 
many new things passing by him, of which none 
is known to him, to find out which are the good 
ones; he is trying to aquire the knowledge of 
how to live in this new place, and what is the 
new food he will have in future on his menu. 
A little gorgeous thing, wonderfully alive, is 
just passing over him. For some days he has 
been trying any amount of things he had never 
seen before; some of them were good enough, 
some no good at all (these last have been re¬ 
jected after trying them), and our fly is just 
another experiment and that is all. 
“To strengthen my theory I will mention an 
experience which I once had with a trout. One 
Sunday I was passing over a little river when I 
sootted a trout poised just under the bridge. 
What is one to do on a Sunday if not remem¬ 
ber that, after all, one has been a boy. and that 
a boy is always keen on playing any trick with 
something alive? So, under shelter of a fortu¬ 
nately placed rock. I stationed myself carefully 
just over the trout, and began to watch it about 
one yard away. Some house flies were about; 
I caught one and dropped it carefully into the 
stream, so that it floated down just over the 
trout. It was taken at once, and the trout came 
back to his former place. Then I went to catch 
any insect I could lay hands on—a black snider, 
one or two gray spiders, some flies of different 
colors, and even some small flowers, bright yel¬ 
low. blue, red. in fact anything. Then I came 
back to my trout, and began with the insects. 
Every one of them, no matter what was its 
color, was swallowed at once, as long as it 
passed within some twenty inches of the fish. 
Further away than that the little brute would not 
trouble to take them. Then I meanly sent a 
little piece of bright yellow flower just over the 
trout; it was taken at once, but soon after was 
ejected. Then another one; the trout looked at 
it. but was not to be deceived twice. Then an¬ 
other insect; after a little hesitation it was swal¬ 
lowed. Then a small piece of bright-colored 
flower, which was caught and spat out in no 
time. To sum up briefly, this trout in about 
half an hour’s time actually took nineteen dif¬ 
ferent things, spitting out any one not good for 
food after trying it. Moreover, after having found 
several morsels to be edible, it always took at 
once anything coming exactly in the same place, 
even though it were not edible at all. Various 
good things of different patterns induced the 
fish to try anything. 
“Of course, a trout and a salmon are different, 
and what is true for one may be not true for the 
other. But I think that there are common rules 
in the ways of every fish, and that what is true 
for one, if one of these general rules, is true 
for the other. When a fish is in. his own water 
he knows his food and sticks to it; when in a 
strange place, he has to take to some other food, 
if the ordinary supply is no more to be found. 
Before he is used to his new diet he is obliged 
to try anything, until the selection between good 
and no good is made at the first glance. That is 
why we see salmon never taking a fly at sea; 
it is not like their customary food. They take 
it in the rivers because in the rivers they have 
to find out new things for food which are un¬ 
known to them. They take it better at their 
first coming up the rivers, because then they 
have not yet learned to judge at a glance what 
is good or not, and they have to find out. They 
do not at all take it on account of its likeness 
to something that they know, but as being a 
lifelike thing which, although unknown, may be 
good. 
“That is my idea about this question. To say 
whether it is the right one or not for me; more 
experienced salmon fishermen can tell better. 
But till I am told anything which will seem to 
me more likely, I ask permission to think that, 
true or not, it is a likely explanation of this 
much-discussed problem.” 
The Tuna Grounds. 
Santa Cruz, Cal., Aug. 18 .—Editor Forest and 
Stream: In a recent issue of the Forest and 
Stream there is an interesting article on the 
tuna, in which a correspondent of the London 
Field complains to the moon that tuna fishing 
in Southern California has been too much talked 
and written about, as tunas are found all over 
the world, etc. 
The writer misses the point entirely. The 
tuna is a world-wide fish. You may see it from 
Cape Cod to Newfoundland and from Naples to 
Norway, and from Los Angeles county, Cali¬ 
fornia, around to China. There was a tuna or 
horse-mackerel fishery at Provincetown, Mass., 
a century ago, and you may see the tail nailed 
against many a fish house in Maine. No fish 
is so common or so well known. There are 
more tunas in the Mediterranean or Madeira 
in a week than you will see at the Channel 
Islands of California in five years; but in 
Southern California, or between Avalon Bay and 
Long Point, Santa Catalina Island, a distance of 
four miles, lies the only successful rod fishing 
ground for tuna in the world, and for this rea¬ 
son, and this alone, writers on angling or rod 
fishing have so much to say about it. 
I know personally that extraordinary efforts 
have been made to find good tuna fishing with 
rod and reel at a dozen places where tunas are 
common, at Naples, or vicinity, the Madeira 
Islands, St. Johns (Newfoundland), Cape Cod, 
Monteroy Bay (Cal.), Japan; but in all these 
cases something happened, or did not happen, 
and the attempts so far to establish a rod and 
reel tuna fishing ground, outside of the one 
mentioned, have proven failures. The essentials 
are smooth water out at sea, perfect fishing 
tools, tunas of catchable size—that is, from 100 
to 300 pounds in weight—reasonable proximity 
to a town or city, transportation facilities. 
Doubtless there is fine tuna hand-line fishing, 
or with the harpoon, or bomb, in North Aus¬ 
tralia; but the location is a little too remote. 
