Newfoundland Salmon Fishing. 
Philadelphia, Pa., May n. — Editor Forest 
and Stream: I have thought it might be of 
some interest to those of your readers who con¬ 
template a salmon fishing trip in Newfoundland 
to receive a few hints from a luckless fisher¬ 
man who has learned by bitter experience what 
to do and what not to do in that most excellent 
of islands. 
For seven or eight 3'ears my friend Silver 
Mitchell and myself have been spending a large 
portion of the summer in fishing the rivers of 
the west coast of Newfoundland, and with two 
or three exceptions we have fished all the 
streams that hold salmon. As is the case with 
every sportsman, be he after fish, flesh or fowl, 
it took three good trips before we got the lay 
of the land, so to speak, and the amount of 
money we wasted in experimenting with various 
kinds of tackle was appalling. Now we are 
pretty well equipped, I think, and for the bene¬ 
fit for those who may follow I offer these few 
suggestions. 
In the first place, be it remembered that the 
streams of Newfoundland are not large rivers, 
and the average weight of the fish does not ex¬ 
ceed nine pounds. There is, therefore, no neces¬ 
sity for the angler to burden himself with a rod 
fifteen feet in length, and on the majority of the 
rivers a fairly light fourteen-foot rod will do 
all that is required; always provided that the 
man behind the gun has some idea of casting. 
The question of reels is almost as important 
as the rod. It is to be regretted, but it is true, 
that in the manufacture of salmon reels our 
English cousins are superior to our own makers, 
and after years of bitter experience I have come 
to the conclusion that the salmon fisherman 
should provide himself with a reel made by 
some first class firm of England, Scotland or 
Ireland. Several firms turn out strong, light 
and easy running reels, with mechanisms that 
are very simple and much less liable to over¬ 
run or jam than those-manufactured by our own 
tackle firms, which are too often rather large, 
clumsy affairs with complicated mechanisms. 
The reel should be large enough to carry forty 
yards of double tapered C casting line with 
sixty or seventy yards of backing. 
The leaders or casts come next. A leader 
nine feet in length is ordinarily used, and this 
length is sufficient, but the greatest care must 
be used in the selection of the gut. It is a 
sine qua non that the gut should be round and 
smooth and free from the slightest blemish, and 
that, after being soaked in water for some hours, 
the leader should pull a strain of at least eight 
pounds on a spring balance. Ten pounds is 
preferable, but eight should be strong enough. 
Now comes the very vital question of flies. 
It is a common error on the part of many fisher¬ 
men, especially those who are comparatively new 
at the sport, to fill their fly boxes with a vast 
number of different flies. Sometimes two dozen 
varieties will be found in an enthusiastic angler’s 
box. This is arrant nonsense. It is not the 
variety of flies used that counts, but nine times 
out of ten it is the size of the fly that does the 
trick. The standard size used in Newfound¬ 
land, day in and day out, high water and low, 
is the No. 6, closely followed by the No. 4, 
while the No. 8 takes third place. A No. 8 fly 
seems remarkably small to the mind of the ordi¬ 
nary salmon fisherman, especially to any one 
who has seen the tremendously big affairs used 
on New Brunswick rivers or English waters, but 
in Newfoundland at the end of the season’s fish¬ 
ing the small flies will be found to be the win¬ 
ning ones. Let the angler have a good number 
of these various sizes of each fly he carries, 
with a few No. 2 at hand to use late in the 
evening on an exceptionally heavy water, but 
he can restrict himself to the following list of 
flies with perfect security. 
Eight years of fishing on various rivers causes 
me to recommend the accompanying list of flies, 
preference being given in the order named: 
Silver Mitchell, silver doctor, Jock Scott, black 
dose and brown fairy. I do not include the 
silver gray, as it is a fly I have used but little, 
and then generally late in the evening, the silver 
doctor answering all purposes. All flies should 
be tied on the down-eyed double Pennell hook, 
the gut loop of ancient days being relegated to 
memory. 
There is no comparison between the modern 
Pennell hook with its metal eye and straight pul 1 , 
and the old fashioned Limerick or O’Shaugh- 
ncssy with its treacherous gut loop and uncer¬ 
tain penetrating powers. 
As far as wearing apparel goes every angler 
knows that woolen underwear and clothes are 
the proper garments for fishing in every place 
and in all waters. The temperature of New¬ 
foundland changes in the most startling man¬ 
ner, and clothes that dry rapidly after being 
soaked are a necessity. The foot gear is most 
important. A pair of heavy and strong leather 
boots, perforated along the soles so as to allow' 
free ingress and egress for the water, are the 
best, and it is unnecessary to add that the soles 
must have a number of soft hob nails, which 
should be securely clamped in the inside of the 
boot. I have seen lumberman’s calks used with 
great success, and indeed they are as service¬ 
able as nails if properly put in. A pair of wad¬ 
ing trousers will be found useful on certain 
pools on one or two rivers, but nine-tenths of 
the fishing is wet fishing. In other words the 
angler should wade the stream clad in his rough 
woolen clothes, as frequently he will have a 
mile or two of water to cover, and to walk the 
banks in rubber wading trousers is not to be 
considered. One more word of advice may be 
given. 
At times the mosquitoes and black flies are 
rather a nuisance, and it behooves the fisher¬ 
man to provide himself with a bottle of “fly 
dope.” There are many such on the market, but 
I strongly recommend the one mentioned by Mr. 
H. P. Wells in his most excellent little book, 
“The American Salmon Fisherman.” 
Trout Fishing Methods. 
New York, May 10 .-—Editor Forest and 
Stream: The recent articles appearing in your 
journal by Mr. Lou S. Darling, headed, “Brook 
Trout Fishing,” contain about the very best ad¬ 
vice to the beginner I have ever read. Indeed, 
an old hand at the business can find pointers 
in Mr. Darling’s articles which will greatly aid 
him in brook fishing for trout. In your issue 
of April 25, I think it was, Mr. Darling advo¬ 
cated not only the use of worms, grasshoppers, 
minnows, etc., but artificial “spinners.” Per¬ 
sonally I do not fish for trout or salmon with 
any lure save the artificial fly, but I have no 
quarrel with those who prefer to fish with other 
and more deadly bait. 
All the foregoing is to lead up to your edi¬ 
torial article in the May 9th issue censuring 
Pennsylvania fishing resort keepers for permit¬ 
ting fishermen to do the very things Mr. Dar¬ 
ling so recently advocated in your columns. 
The question is, do you taboo all kinds of 
fishing for trout except with the fly? 
Noah Palmer. 
[In the editorial referred to we mentioned 
gangs of baited hooks and spinners of various 
sorts, but did not include the devices generally 
used by all fair sportsmen. We doubt if Mr. 
Darling ever uses more than one hook in worm 
fishing for trout. 
It is generally conceded that a trout caught 
on a fly and returned to the water is seldom in¬ 
jured; that one caught on a single small baited 
hook is not injured unless the barb reaches the 
throat or gullet and is therefore extracted with 
difficulty. But a small trout caught on a gang 
of hooks, single or treble, or on one of the de¬ 
vices used with minnows, and which bristles 
with small treble hooks, is usually injured in a 
number of places before it can be returned to 
the water, and if it lives—which is not probable 
—it is fair to assume that it will not rise to 
the fly or take any other lure. It is further as¬ 
sumed that small trout are returned to the water 
by all but those persons who count their catch 
in pounds. There are trout streams in which 
the fly-fishing has been good until the advent of 
the men who employ the most deadly devices 
they can purchase. It was these trout streams 
that we referred. 
There may come a time when, to conserve the 
trout supply, it will be necessary to limit the 
fishing in some trout streams to the fly only. 
This is now the law in at least one State, which 
is endeavoring to save one of its streams for 
anglers. It is not necessary to do this now 
everywhere, and it will never be necessary if 
anglers will be content to employ from one to 
three single hooks, whether fly or bait. If. how¬ 
ever, they show an increased tendency to employ 
devices which are nothing less than baited traps 
—devices which are deadly if the bait is taken 
by the trout—then the immense army of anglers 
who believe in giving a trout a fighting chance 
to escape will rise up and demand the most 
stringent legislation.— Editor.] 
