Forest and Stream 
Terms, $3 a Year, 10 Cts. a Copy. 
Six Months, $1.50. 
NEW YORK, SATURDAY, AUGUST 12 , 1911 . 
, VOL. LXXVII.—No. 7. 
I No. 127 Franklin St., New York. 
A FAVORITE POOL. 
The Ocean Shore of Nova Scotia 
By F. G. 
Pictures from photographs by L. C. Flynt. 
H IS OTHER ENGAGEMENT,” one of 
Henry Van Dyke’s “Essays on Profit¬ 
able Idleness,” tells how an angler 
missed his own wedding because a large salmon 
seized his fly and carried him so far down the 
river, before coming to the gaff, that he was 
unable to reascend the stream and drive to the 
church until after the wedding party had come 
and gone without him. 
The story popped into my head the other day, 
when a fish took my fly at Milton, three miles 
up the Mersey from the ocean shore of Nova 
Scotia. It happened on the morning of the last 
day of a stay of two weeks, while I was waiting 
to be driven down to Liverpool to take the 
train for Yarmouth, which would permit the 
keeping of a business engagement in Boston 
the next morning; and there was, perhaps, a 
half hour to spare, when the fly was taken 
beneath the surface. 
For a moment I wondered whether it would 
be necessary to miss the train or to hand the 
rod over to a brother angler, but its first leap 
showed that the fish was only a grilse, which 
was speedily brought to the gaff. If, instead, it 
had been the salmon which, a few days before, 
had taken a small brown trout fly with mottled 
wing, a Cahill, I think, and for fully an hour 
had refused to budge from the pool opposite 
the upper end of Tupper Island, there might 
have been a very different story to tell. That 
salmon was hooked on the fourth cast, after a 
grilse had missed the first one, and was thought 
to be the grilse until its long-drawn, dogged 
resistance proved the contrary. It was finally 
gaffed for me by another angler who had drawn 
near in his boat for a better view. 
The fishing at Milton extends from the first 
dam down to low tide water, a half mile or 
more. Some salmon and grilse are taken be¬ 
low the second dam, which is a mile above the 
first one, and some still further up the river; 
but the fishing would improve if better fish¬ 
ways were provided wherever they are needed. 
Residents of Milton tell me also that the law 
covering the use of set nets and dip nets is 
not strictly observed. The dipping is done with 
long-handled scoop nets, from noon until sun¬ 
set, four days of each of a few weeks in early 
summer, in the rough water between the first 
dam and the bridge two hundred feet below it. 
Occasionally a salmon is dipped, more fre¬ 
quently a grilse, quite often one or more kiack. 
It would be interesting for an angler to look 
down from the bridge upon a half-dozen patient 
and persistent dippers, if he were not disturbed 
by the thought that some of them might return 
at an unlawful hour when honest folks were 
asleep. 
The first run of salmon in the Mersey lasts 
from the opening of the season until about the 
middle of May. Then there is a lull until grilse 
and salmon begin to appear together in the 
latter part of June. At its best the fishing is 
well worth the journey, twelve grilse in one 
day taking my grizzly king tied on a No. 4 
trout hook, although not all of them were 
brought to gaff. Parker Iv. Freeman, of Milton, 
appears to hold the record as a successful fish- 
