18 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[ July 3, 1909. 
So much for nets and the netters. Supposing 
the ardent fisherman to have come to a satis¬ 
factory arrangement with these men at the mouth 
of Forteau, he immediately looks for a suitable 
camping spot, and here he finds a serious prob¬ 
lem confronting him; that is, the lack of fire 
wood along the river during the first mile or 
so. There are acres of low brush and miles of 
caribou moss, but no timber for the first mile, 
and as wood is a necessity, not a luxury for a 
camp, the tents had better be taken well up 
stream beyond the first pond. 
From the mouth of the river to this pond the 
distance is about a mile and in that mile there 
is one magnificent bit of water after another. 
The first pool from the mouth is affected by 
the tide and is known as the Tidal Pool, a wide, 
steady bit of water with the usual rapids at its 
head and curving away on its north bank. I 
have seen but never killed a fish in this pool. 
The upper portion of it can be covered by deep 
wading, but to reach the lower end a boat must 
be used. 
Just above this Tidal Pool comes the main 
pool of the lower river and one which must be 
fished carefully and steadily. It is a splendid 
piece of fishing water, seventy-five yards or more 
in length by half as wide, with a swift, heavy 
current at its head gradually broadening out into 
a deep rocky pool at the tail. 
With the river in fair condition a good fisher¬ 
man can cover the entire pool by wading down 
the north side of the current where a continuous 
ridge of rocks affords a foothold. He must be 
careful, but it is not a very difficult task. Fish 
will be found both at the head and tail with the 
latter affording the best water, and when the 
run of sea trout starts in the river about the 
middle of July, it is a really marvelous place for 
these plucky fish. One day in the first week 
of August, too late for good salmon fishing, I 
struck a remarkable run of trout. 
It was flood water and the sea trout had come 
in from the bay in thousands; the tail of the 
pool was fairly alive with these fish, and in com¬ 
pany with a friend who fished from a boat in 
the south side of the current while I waded the 
water to the north, some extraordinary sport 
was experienced. The trout that morning must 
have averaged over two pounds in weight and 
their number was legion. The angler in the boat 
using a strong two-handed grilse rod, just the 
thing for a run of heavy sea trout, killed one 
big fish after another, one going a good five 
pounds, while with a six-ounce rod I had my 
hands full with the big fish and heavy water. 
It was a memorable two hours and I was sorry 
when it was time to seek the schooner that was 
waiting to weigh anchor in the bay. 
From this pool to the pond already mentioned 
there is one pool after another, some large and 
deep, some small and steady, with an occasional 
little hole here and there where the wary and 
experienced angler will frequently find a fish. 
Nearly all the fishing is on the north side of 
the river and owing to the heavy growth of alder 
bushes that skirt the stream, the fishing is en¬ 
tirely wading. There is no bank along which 
the angler can walk and fish; he must take to 
the water and mind his footing. 
At this point the river runs through a most 
desolate portion of the country. It is one vast 
barren land without a stick or stone to break 
the monotony, nothing but a footing of caribou 
moss and an occasional low and stunted bush. 
The ground rises steadily in elevation on all 
sides and a low range of hills to the north is 
the only break in a dreary landscape. 
Crossing the pond, the best part of the river 
is reached. The stream takes several sharp 
bends and finally a mile above the pond the 
falls of Forteau are reached. These falls are 
well worth the attention of the most casual 
tourist, to say nothing of the average fisherman 
who likes nature and nature’s works. In its 
rapid descent from that vast plateau that forms 
the interior of the Labrador peninsula, the stream 
reaches this cliff and pours over in one great 
chute, possibly 150 feet across by 75 ' n height. 
The fall is not sheer, but is very precipitous 
and is broken only in one place where a reef 
puts out in the very middle of the torrent. 
The salmon of the river cannot get up Forteau 
Falls, so that the angler’s efforts are confined 
to the distance from the foot of this really grand 
cascade to where the river empties into the bay, 
and from that distance of three miles the pond 
must be eliminated so that the actual fishing is 
not much over two miles. Small as this water 
is, there is enough to keep two determined fish¬ 
ermen busy every hour of the day, one taking 
the lower water between the bay and the pond, 
the other covering the river between the pond 
and the falls with t]je camp at the west end of 
this small lake. This is the best place for the 
permanent camp, and it is not a very good place 
at that, the timber being conspicuous by its ab¬ 
sence and the brush along the banks of the river 
being small and the haunt of mosquitoes. 
When the camp is made the first procedure 
is to cut down all the nearby bushes. Then and 
not till then will the sportsman have some re¬ 
lief from the flies which infest Forteau River. 
The fisherman should reach this stream about 
the 25th of June. Take it year in and year out, 
the end of June is the proper time to get on the 
salmon rivers of Newfoundland and Southern 
Labrador. The first and main run of fish starts 
toward the end of this month in nearly every 
river. It may be delayed a week or it may start 
a week earlier, depending upon the condition 
of the river, but June 25 is a good day upon 
which to base the fisherman’s calculation. 
The angler can fish Forteau thoroughly in a 
stay of three weeks, but those weeks must be 
spent in fishing, not in loafing. Along the river 
the going is easy enough and a path runs through 
the barrens from near the mouth of the stream 
to the falls, but it is slow and heavy walking. 
Two river boats are needed if the angler has 
a friend, and with the camp as described, on 
the western side of the pond, the river is at the 
mercy of the first comers. 
The salmon of Forteau River average over 
ten pounds in weight, with here and there a 
very heavy fish, and there is an astonishingly 
big run of grilse toward the end of July. By 
the end of the month the salmon fishing is prac¬ 
tically over, the first being found near the falls, 
and for the most part they are lean, black and 
sulky, refusing to rise to the fly. 
I remember distinctly fishing a large pool half 
a mile below the falls on the 31st of July. This 
pool was literally crowded with fish running be¬ 
tween ten and twenty pounds in weight, and 
though there was hardly a moment when one 
was not breaking water, I obtained only one rise 
in four hours’ fishing, and that fish was as black 
as the proverbial ace of spades. The follow¬ 
ing day, in a large pool higher up stream, my 
companion secured five fish after a day s fish¬ 
ing, but of these three were grilse and the two 
salmon were in bad condition. 
In the early part of July the fishing is at its 
height and the water should be in excellent 
shape. The angler will need a strong fourteen 
or fifteen-foot rod and a book full of the regu¬ 
lation salmon flies—silver doctors, grays and 
Mitchells, Jock Scotts, black dose and brown 
fairies, well assorted in sizes. No. 6’s will be 
the most serviceable, but the 4’s and 8 s will kill 
plenty of fish. The sea trout will take anything. 
Forteau will repay a visit, but let the angler 
be the first on the river. If he discovers from 
the captain of the “Home” that another sports¬ 
man is already ensconced on the stream, let him 
turn his attention elsewhere, but if he is the 
sole occupant and makes satisfactory arrange¬ 
ments with the netters at the mouth, there is no 
reason why Forteau River should not give him 
most excellent sport. J- L. D. 
Are Fi*h Sensitive to Pain? 
New York City, June 21. —Editor Forest and 
Stream: I recently had an experience while 
brook trout fishing on the Wyandanch Club 
waters, at Smithtown, Long Island, which tends 
to strengthen my belief that brook trout on 
many occasions are not sensitive to pain. I was 
fishing in the small brook which is a portion 1 
of the headwaters of the Nisequogue River, 
using worms for bait, as it was impossible to 
cast flies on account of the overhanging foliage 
and trees over the stream, and letting my line 
run down into quite a deep hole under the 
bank, I felt a heavy strike and on striking the 
fish my six-foot leader parted near the line, 
having on same a small-sized hook, snell and 
sinker. Getting out of the stream and sitting 
down upon the bank, I leisurely tied on a new 
leader, hook, snell and sinker, and again letting 
my line down carefully in the same hole I was 
rewarded by another strike and on striking the 
fish, hooked same, and on reeling it to my land-' 
ing’net I found that he was doubly hooked, as 
he still had in his mouth my former hook with 
the bait on, the snell, sinker and my entire 
leader. The trout was a good sized one, weigh¬ 
ing over one-half a pound, and seemed to suffer 
no ill effects from having the hook in his lower, 
jaw. 
Are trout sensitive to pain at all or do thej 
not feel any pain when hooked lightly through 
their lower jaw? Spencer Aldrich. 
Dulwich Sinkers. 
The conditions of a casting tournament t< 
be held to-day at Dulwich by the British Se; 
Angling Society call for weights of severs 
sizes. There is an event for accuracy only witT 
4-ounce weights, and several contests for conn 
bined distance and accuracy with y 2 , 1, 4. 6 an' 
8-ounce weights. The half-pound weights mus 
be cast with rods 7 to 10 feet in length, an 
lines must be capable of lifting 20 pounds. Ev. 
dently the tides are strong at Dulwich, if it 1 
necessary to employ half-pound leads to hoi 
the bottom; certainly the contestant must tl 
strong to win. 
