51G 
FOREST AND STREAM 
April 20, 1912 
KING GEORGE'S BIGGEST SALMON. 
“It scaled over forty pounds, and it was 
cauglit in the Aaro, a river which flows into the 
Sogndalsfjord, in Norway,” says the Scotsman. 
“The region has at one time or another seen 
many a royal personage, but the natives speak 
with special enthusiasm of the visit of the 
British King and of his angling skill. 
“So when a squadron of the British fleet cast 
anchor at Finreite, at the very spot where the 
fateful battle between Mangus and Sverre had 
been fought, the whole region gave it a hearty 
welcome. The Prince of Wales, as King 
George then was, was in command, and he 
was on his way to visit Colonel Percy Har¬ 
graves, the tenant of the salmon fishings of the 
Aaro, which is famous for its unusually large, 
strong fish, and for the exciting sport it gives. 
“The Aaro comes down from the Justedals 
glacier, and has a very varied course, now broad, 
now narrow; sometimes slow and placid, anon 
dashing over precipices and rushing in wild 
cascades to the sea. On the river are two 
famous waterfalls—the Futesprang and Hell’s 
Fos, a name that needs no commentary. This 
fos is little more than a mile from the fjord, and 
as the salmon cannot get further up than the 
waterfall, the fishing is confined to that short 
stretch. But what the river loses in length it 
gains in the size and quantity and quality of the 
fish and in the interesting and exciting, but at 
the same time also exhausting, sport which the 
huge fish give in the foaming, rushing, rocky 
river. The angler must be equipped with the 
very best of tackle, and be a strong and expert 
fisher, if he is to hook and land the royal fish; 
and even with the best of gear and luck, one 
must be satisfied if he safely brings to bank one 
in three of the salmon he hooks. 
“The river is in great demand; and it is a 
great privilege to receive an invitation for a 
day’s sport on it. In 1895 Wilfrid Kennedy 
landed a 68-pounder, the record salmon for 
Norway, although it is said that larger fish 
still have been caught, but the weights have 
not been verified. Sir Henry Seton Karr, who 
has made his name in every department of sport 
in Norway, has also shown his prowess among 
the salmon of the Aaro elv. 
“Prince George, as he then was, steamed in 
his pinnace up to the end of the fjord, and 
landed at the mouth of the river, receiving a 
hearty and respectful greeting from the as¬ 
sembled peasants and a loyal welcome from his 
host. After a fisher’s’ breakfast, the royal guest 
inspected the walls of the old stabur with its 
pictures of the big fish caught in the adjacent 
river, the 68-pounder and other smaller fry, 
none being considered worthy of the place that 
did not scale at least 50 pounds. The Prince 
expressed his pleasure at being permitted to 
try his luck in a river with denizens like these, 
and he hoped that fortune might favor him 
that day. 
“Every angler knows that the salmon is a 
capricious gentleman, and that wind and 
weather exercise a great influence on the sport. 
It was a fine summer day; but neither the 
weather conditions nor the water were specially 
favorable. Indeed, to the regret of the host, 
and of the local experts, the prospect was far 
from bright. Johan, the ghillie, who is par¬ 
ticularly proud of the river, was specially an¬ 
noyed that the Prince of Wales was likely to 
have a blank day. It was with quiet, but not 
quite concealed, anxiety that Johan watched the 
Prince’s first cast. More than once he had dis¬ 
covered that a man’s social rank and his angling 
skill may stand in inverse proportion to each 
other. But his face quickly cleared, for he 
perceived that His Royal Highness was no 
novice with the rod. With the local expert’s 
experience he pointed out to the Prince the 
special spots in each pool where the salmon 
were wont to lie. For a long time not a fish 
was inclined to move. At length one salmon 
made a lazy leap, and that was encouraging; 
then another rose to the surface and gaped at 
the Prince’s fly, yet without showing any dis¬ 
position to make a nearer acquaintance with it. 
But the royal angler kept at it, and warmed 
to his work, and Johan kept encouraging him. 
for he had made up his mind that the Prince 
must land a fish before he left the river. 
“But lunch time came without a single catch. 
The Prince, however, was in capital humor, and 
related some of his hunting and fishing experi¬ 
ences in India, Scotland and elsewhere; but he 
acknowledged that he had never landed a fish 
to compare with those the Aaro produced. 
Shortly after lunch business was resumed. Sud¬ 
denly the Prince’s rod became an arch, the reel 
sang, and the salmon—it was a fish at last—set 
off for the rapids. That was the beginning of 
the exciting game which the salmon fisher 
knows so well, and which to the genuine sports¬ 
man is so often the subject even of his dreams. 
“It was no stolid, quiet fish which the Prince 
had on his hook, and it left him little time for 
meditation. It was a stiff and exhausting 
struggle, but His Royal Highness played his 
fish perfectly. It was manifest to all the spec¬ 
tators that this was not the first salmon he 
had hooked; and they followed the fight with 
admiring interest. It is by no means easy to 
play a fish properly in a strange river, least of 
all in a river like the Aaro, but Prince George 
was never at fault. And gradually the fish be¬ 
came manageable. It made some few last mad 
rushes out into the foaming current, then in it 
came slowly, there was a flash of the gaff, and 
then in an instant the beautiful, silvery fish was 
stretched on the river bank. 
“It was a regular Aaro salmon, over forty 
pounds in weight, the largest the Prince had 
ever caught. That he was satisfied with his 
prize was quite apparent; and not less satisfied 
was Johan, who had good reason, too, indeed 
a golden reason, for his satisfaction. 
“In the evening the Prince returned to his 
vessel with his fine fish, well pleased with his 
day’s angling, and he assured Colonel Har¬ 
greaves that he would never forget the events 
of that interesting and exciting day. And not 
less pleased were the peasants of the district, 
who to this day speak enthusiastically of the 
frank and friendly gentleman who spent that 
day among them ,and who now so worthily 
occupies the British throne.’ 
EXHIBITION OF GAME AND FISH. 
Up on the north side of the fourth floor of 
the Capitol, near the Department of the Forest, 
Fish and Game Department of the State 
Conservation Commission, is an exhibit that 
receives little attention these days but which in 
1904 was adjudged to be of such merit and 
value that it was awarded a ribbon and medal 
at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, says the 
Albany correspondent of the Troy Times. In 
its time it excited great interest and was one 
of the display features of the Capitol. It is now 
in an out-of-the-way place, in a part of the 
building seldom sought by visitors. 
It has fallen from its former high state to the 
level of a side issue that attracts attention only 
when attention is attracted to it. The only 
business transacted in the vicinity of its loca¬ 
tion is that done by the State Architect, Board 
of Claims and the Forest, Fish and Game Com¬ 
mission, to which it belongs. It consists of a 
large number of specimens of fish and birds 
that should be very attractive to sportsmen, 
lovers of life in the open, naturalists and others 
of their ilk. The specimens are handsomely and 
naturally mounted and contained in large cases 
equipped with shelves. The exhibit is of con¬ 
siderable magnitude and evidently in its en¬ 
tirety the result of an expenditure ' of much 
time, money, care and skillful arrangement. 
Every bird and fish has attached to it a card 
giving its name in both English and Latin. 
The exhibit is in an excellent state of preser¬ 
vation and would form a nucleus for a fine col¬ 
lection if placed in the hands of an expert 
clothed with the power and means to make it 
complete and arrange and display it as such 
things should be arranged and displayed. 
The piscatorial specimens range from the 
small spadefish, bullhead or horned pout, sand 
pike, perch, pumpkin seed, rock bass and many 
of the smaller species familiar to the fishermen 
of this section to the huge St. Lawrence River 
muscallonge, big-mouthed bass, red snapper. 
channel bass and other varieties of the larger 
growths. There are sea fish, also many speci¬ 
mens of curious and grotesque formation with 
heads like gargoyles. 
The birds range in size from Least'and Acad¬ 
ian flycatchers and the diminutive humming 
bird to the heron, cormorant and great ducks 
and wild geese, with intermediate specimens of 
the starling, sparrow, thrush, loon, whippoor¬ 
will, bluejay, bobolink, blackbird, gold finch, 
warbler, pheasant, grouse, curlew, plover and 
others almost innumerable. In one of the cases 
is exhibited the official award ribbon given the 
New York State Forest, Fish and Game Com¬ 
mission by the Louisiana Purchase Exposition 
for the best exhibition of mounted specimens 
of food and game fish. The ribbon bears the 
signature of IDavid R. Francis, president of the 
exposition, and that of the secretary. 
In close proximity to the fish and bird ex¬ 
hibits stands another interesting feature of the 
past that at one time was regarded as a remark¬ 
ably ingenious piece of work. It is the big 
model of the great Adirondack region of New 
York State that was on exhibition at the Pan- 
American Exposition at Buffalo. It was de¬ 
signed by Edwin E. Howell and will be recalled 
by those who saw it as a panorama in minia¬ 
ture of the North Woods showing with wonder¬ 
ful realism the mountains, hills, lakes, ponds, 
valleys, famous resorts, streams and even the 
roads and trails, besides every inhabited place, 
large and small. It is a landscape in relief 
worked in a material as hard as stone and tinted 
in accordance with nature. Where there is a 
mountain there is an elevation proportionate 
to the scale of the model, and the same realism 
pervades the entire work. Th horizontal scale 
is one inch to the mile and the vertical two 
inches to the mile. The model is about ten by 
fifteen feet in dimensions and is inclosed in a 
wire framework. People who have not seen these 
attractions of other days will find it worth their 
while to view them the next time they visit 
the Capitol. 
HUNTERS SHOULD HELP. 
A LITTLE food for birds scattered in places 
where they can feed costs but little and may 
save many lives in the snowy time. Quail surely 
can find but poor food underneath the frozen 
snow and are likely to be nearly exterminated 
unless considerate farmers and likewise con¬ 
siderate hunters, give them occasional help. 
The birds are apt to hunt barnyards at such 
times. Hunters certainly should co-operate 
with the farmers over whose land they hunt 
and not leave it all for these men who allow 
them shooting by courtesy. Through all this 
section there are many farmers who would be 
very willing and ready to scatter the food if the 
men from out of town come out and shoot the 
birds will supply the food.—Taunton Gazette. 
FISH AFFECTED BY MOON’S PHASES. 
Certain Scotch fishing authorities believe the 
various phases of the moon have a direct con¬ 
nection with the willingness of fish to be netted. 
To test this theory, statistics were obtained of 
the catch of herrings from i860 to 1900, with the 
result that the biggest catches were found to 
have coincided with the new moon and the 
smallest with the full moon. The report sug¬ 
gested that a full moon enabled the nets to be 
seen much more easily than at the times of new 
moon or the crescent phase or that the tides 
which vary with the lunar phases were possible 
factors in the matter.—Westminster Gazette. 
PROOF OF HIS STORY. 
A lo-pound bass, 21 inches long, lost its way 
during a flood at Pittsburgh last week and 
wandered away from the river on to one of the 
flooded streets of the city. It was caught by 
John Ranche, assistant superintendent of the 
Men’s Industrial Department of the Pittsburgh 
Association for the Improvement of the Poor, 
who put it in a tub of water and exhibited it to 
all who doubted the truth of the story.—Boston 
Globe. 
