Oct. 27, 1906.] 
FOREST.AND STREAM. 
661 
Fish and Fishing. 
An Important Judgment. 
Another judgment, though not a final one, it 
is believed, has been rendered in the matter of 
the fishing rights of the famous Moisie river, 
by the Supreme Court of Canada, from which it 
is altogether likely that an appeal will be taken 
to the Imperial Privy Council. The history of 
this litigation is an exceedingly interesting one, 
and some of the points involved of the utmost 
importance to owners and supposed owners of 
Canadian salmon rivert or of portions thereof. 
The late Alexander Fraser, who together with 
the late Mr. Holliday, was interested in the sal¬ 
mon fisheries of the Moisie river, obtained from 
the government many years ago a grant of the 
lands on both sides of the river opposite the 
famous salmon pools, which grant was supposed 
to carry with it the ownership of the river and 
of the fishing therein. 
For a number of years Mr. Fraser and Mr. 
Holliday exercised the right of ownership oyer 
the fishing in the river by leasing the angling- 
rights to various parties. Among other well- 
known fishermen who leased , and exercised these 
rights from time to time were Messrs. Amos 
Little, David G. Yates, Borden and party of 
Philadelphia, Andrew Allan and Charles Hope, 
of Montreal; and D. Toland, of Philadelphia. 
The late Edson Fitch and Mr. Vesey Boswell, 
of Quebec, enjoyed the fishing of the river for 
some years, in consideration of a mortgage which 
they held against the property rights of Mr. 
Fraser thereon, for some $20,000 which they had 
advanced him. The terms of this mortgage pro¬ 
vided that Mr. Fraser had up to a certain date 
to pay it off, failing which the property was to 
revert to .the owners of the mortgage at a certain 
price. Mr, Fraser having no means of his own 
to pay off the mortgage, Mr. Ivers W. Adams, 
of Bost: n, came to his rescue at the last moment, 
and the mortgage was paid off. 
Meantime, the judgment of the Privy Council 
in the question of the Canadian fisheries had de¬ 
clared that the fishing in navigable and floatable 
rivers was the property of the Crown. Conse¬ 
quently the provincial government had set up its 
claim to the ownership of the fishing in the 
Moisie. Mr. Adams, who. had been disposed to 
recognize this claim while Messrs. Boswell and 
Fitch fished the river, and who consequently took 
a lease of the fishing rights from the govern¬ 
ment, became himself later the lessee of the fish¬ 
ing from Fraser, with the right of purchase- from 
him. Finding themselves dispossessed of the 
supposed proprietary rights of the river, Messrs. 
Fitch and Boswell then turned to the government 
and entered into a contract for the lease of their 
supposed rights on the river. Mr. Adams having- 
gone down to the river each year and fished it, 
the new government lessees .were unable to exer¬ 
cise their rights as such lessees, and called upon 
the government to place them in possession of 
the fishing in question. Hence the actions in law 
taken by the government and known as the cases 
of the King vs. Adams and the King vs. Fraser. 
The dispute naturally involved the question 
whether the Moisie is a public river, on account 
of being affected by the tides, or being, as a 
matter of fact, navigable and floatable, and in 
any case whether the fishing rights are vested 
in the Crown or in the riparian owners of land 
held in fee simple on either side of the river, 
/ftlams and Fraser claim that the river is neither 
navigable nor floatable, nor part of the public 
domain, and that for this reason, and on account 
of the intention of the grants to Fraser, as dis¬ 
closed by the negotiations with the Crown Lands 
department, he is exclusive owner of the fishing- 
rights within the, boundary of his riparian pro¬ 
prietorship. Adams is impleaded as lessee of 
Fraser, and holder of ah agreement for sale of 
the fishing rights from him. 
In the Superior Court, the original court of 
jurisdiction, Judge Laure held that the river was 
both navigable and floatable, that the fishing- 
rights remained vested in the Crown, and there¬ 
fore maintained the action with costs. 
The Court of King’s Bench, to- which the case 
was appealed by Messrs. Fraser and Adams, five 
judges on the bench, reversed the former decis¬ 
ion, declaring that since the date of his grant, 
Fraser and his representatives owned the fish¬ 
ing rights, and so dismissed the action with costs, 
In pronouncing this judgment the majority of 
the Court of King’s Bench refused to adjudicate 
as to the navigability or floatability of the Moisie 
river. Mr. Justice Hall, however, was of the 
opinion that it was not, in a legal sense, a navi¬ 
gable or a floatable river. 
Now comes the judgment of the Supreme Court 
of Canada, which in.its turn reverses the last 
preceding decision, that of the Court of King’s 
Bench, declaring that the claim of the govern¬ 
ment is well founded. In view of the large 
amount at stake in this matter, and seeing the 
difference of opinion among the Canadian judges, 
it is not surprising that Mr. Adams should have 
resolved upon appealing the case to the Imperial 
Privy Council. 
The ultimate decision of that final court of 
appeal will be of great importance both to the 
provincial governments and to American and 
MR.- THOMAS D. WHISTLER’S TROUT. 
other proprietors of salmon fishing in Canada. 
As to the Moisie itself, which yielded over 500 
salmon this year to angler's, and probably more 
than ten times that number to the commercial 
fishermen owning nets in the estuary, it may 
safely be said that its value as an angling stream 
is not less than from $75,000 to $100,000, the fish 
taken in it being the largest to be had in any 
Canadian river, with the possible exception of 
the Cascapedia, many of them exceeding forty 
pounds in weight. E. T. D. Chambers. 
The Ballast of the Ccd Fish. 
Ti-ie stone in the stomach of the codfish so 
otten found in Atlantic coast waters is no myth. 
It is in fact paralleled by the sand found in their 
kin in the North Sea. Some skippers think they 
take in "ballast” when migrating from the south; 
others, that it is to ride out a storm in deep 
water. All are agreed as to the purport, how¬ 
ever. for, on arrival at- the southern banks, the 
fish invariably evacuate the mineral substance 
retained during the northern migration.—Fish¬ 
ing Gazette. 
Work of the Fly Fishers’ Club. 
Editor Forest and Stream: 
The following clipping from the Roscoe-Rock- 
land Review may be of interest to anglers who 
frequent Sullivan county waters. If ever a stream 
needed restocking, the Beaverkill is one of them, 
and the Neversink is another. “Yonkers” hits it 
about right, and he could have done the same 
thing further up stream than Cook’s Falls, too. 
J. Wilkin. 
The Trout’s Food. 
Buffalo, N. Y., Sept. 30. —Editor Forest and 
Stream: I see by Peter Flint’s article in issue 
of Sept. 29, that he is endeavoring to make an 
epicure out of fontinalis, and that he does not 
believe that they feed on minnows. Since he 
questions the authority mentioned by Mr. Hardy 
I will put the following quotation up to him, from 
no less an authority than the late William C. 
Harris, who says: “Gifted with aesthetic pro¬ 
clivities, and as, we have seen, at the same time 
exhibiting those o'f the athlete, the trout has been 
accused of being a coarse, if not a gross feeder, 
because he has been known to eat small water 
snakes. True, he is somewhat of a glutton, for 
I have seen a trout on more than one occasion 
take a fly with the tail of a minnow protruding 
from its mouth.” 
I see no reason why a trout would not 'take in 
a darter, even though the fins were sharp. They 
are no sharper than a fish hook, and being stung 
by a hook does not prevent the thing happening 
again, for it is no uncommon experience to catch 
a trout with a hook already in its mouth. 
Dixmont. 
New York, Oct. 15 . —Editor Forest and Stream: 
On my return to my lodge in the Adirondacks early 
one September morning, I was overtaken by a 
shrewd local farmer-sportsman, and we soon 
began talking about the gradual extinction of 
the great pike in the lake. “Fished to death?” 
I suggested. “Not a bit of it,” said he. “I'll 
tell you just what’s the matter with the pickerel. 
It's them shiners they put in some time ago 
that’s killin’ on ’em. How do they do it, eat 
little ones? Worse than that. They eat the 
eggs. You know early in the spring in high 
water just after the ice is out the pickerel come 
in to the ma’shes and lay their eggs, stickin’ 
on ’em to the twigs and old grass. This is 
where the little shiners gets in their work. 
After Mrs. Pickerel has got all through and has 
gone back into deeper water, they come to the 
surface and don’t do a thing to all that newly 
laid spawn. Why, I’ve been spearin’ before now 
and seen ’em at work by the thousands. Yes; 
that's the way the little fellers gets even with 
the big bullies who live on their people all 
through the summer. And the shiners always 
win in time. No use to put themi strange fish 
into our waters-with the pickerel. I presume 
they eat up the bass eggs in the same way, and 
maybe the perch spawn, too. ’Tain’t the first 
time that the weaklin's has destroyed the proud 
and mighty.” 
Here is a new thought. I learn that rainbow 
and brown trout put by the commission in lakes 
stocked and swarming with shiners are not 
giving good results. Is there anything in this? 
If a trout prefers insects and crawfish 
to shiners, why should he be crowded out of a 
pond by these tasteless spawn eaters which often 
attain a length of from 6 to 8 inches in our 
mountain lakes? Peter Flint. 
A Large Triton Club Trout. 
While Thomas D. Whistler, of New York city, 
was fishing in the waters of the Triton Club pre¬ 
serve, in Quebec, in September, he captured 
eleven brook trout on a 3J4 ounce split bamboo 
fly-rod, the weights of these fish being as fol¬ 
lows: Sept. 8, a,3-pounder; Sept. 15, three fish, 
weighing 6, 5 and 4 pounds; Sept. 16, three fish, 
5L2, 4 and 3^2 pounds; Sept. 17, three fish, 4, 4 
and 3 pounds; Sept. 22, one fish, weighing 8 / 
pounds. 
This last trout is the record for the Triton 
Club of fish taken on the fly. Its length was 
27H inches and its depth 8 inches. Mrs. Whistler 
made the accompanying photograph of Mr. 
Whistler, the ’record trout, and the rod it was 
killed on. 
Death of George A. Carter. 
George A. Carter died suddenly in his office 
in Saco, Maine, Oct. 4, aged seventy-five years. 
He w'as president of the York County Fish and 
Game Society. Strangely enough, both he and 
his wife died from heart failure within a fortnight. 
