The Angler in Ireland. 
Salmon rivers with us in Ireland are of two 
kinds, early and late, and this is a thing some¬ 
times overlooked by the tourist angler. The 
early rivers are invariably large, such as the 
Shannon, Blackwater, Lie and others, for the 
springer, intent on paying a long visit lasting 
well over the summer, seems careful to avoid 
rivers which might leave him stranded at any 
time and so exposed to many dangers. Those 
early rivers have three separate migrations of 
salmon—springers, peel and late fish or backend- 
ers, but all the fish are held to foregather ami¬ 
cably at the close of the year on the gravelly 
shallows of the remote headwaters to carry on 
the great work of spawning together. 
The springers, as they are generally called, 
begin tb move in from the sea in December or 
even earlier, and each migration it may here be 
said extends over a period of three months or 
thereabouts, but all movements are governed by 
varying conditions of weather and water. The 
angling season opens in February, and by that 
time the rivers seldom fail to be fairly well 
stocked with fresh-run fish-, and where condi¬ 
tions are favorable, the earlier portion of the 
season gives the best fishing. All fish seem to 
take best soon after arrival, but the later fish 
are generally the less*keen all around. 
When a month or two has elapsed the springer 
gradually ceases to take very much interest in 
lures of any kind, a rule, however, occasionally 
brightened b>' a conspicuous exception, but by' 
May spring fishing in general may be regarded 
as at least very near its close. The earliest fish 
are gastronomically the choicest of their kind, 
springers taken in January, and one river at 
least—the Garavogue, down Sligo way—opens 
with the New Year, have been known to fetch 
ios. per pound in the London market and gour¬ 
mets say they are well worth it. Unfortunately, 
however, springers as a rule give but little sport 
with the fly, at least till the season is somewhat 
on the wane and the fish themselves a small 
trifle off color. For needless to say the salmon 
begins to fail in weight and condition from the 
moment it quits the sea. while dullness creeps 
over the silvery sheen of its scaly armor. 
Springers are of all sizes, though none are less 
than three-year-olds and so past the stage of 
grilsehood. Some of them come in so late as 
to be known as summer fish, but this name is 
unfortunate, suggesting as it does a mere sea¬ 
sonal differentiation, whereas the term springer 
really connotes something racially distinct, or at 
least a fish quite apart from others of its 
family in habits and quality. A springer is a 
springer no matter when it enters the river, 
and the excuse for its conventional name is 
that it is the one in possession and well 
known, sufficiently characteristic, too, not to' be 
altogether inappropriate, while science has so 
far failed to furnish us with a better. We shall 
see there are springers in rivers which salmon 
, never enter till August or even later and shall 
learn how to recognize them as such. 
In May or early June the peel migration be¬ 
gins, these small fish swarming into some of 
our early rivers in vast numbers, though in 
others for some inexplicable reason they are 
scarcely found at all. In the Shannon they 
abound and give good sport in June and July, 
but though taking the fly well and being for 
their weight and inches the most dashing fighters 
we have, peel unfortunately get out of condi¬ 
tion very rapidly. Brief and uncertain, alas, is 
CHINOOK SALMON, WEIGHT 8o POUNDS. 
Photograph by Woodfield, Astoria. From “The Colum¬ 
bia River.” By permission of G. P. Putnam’s Sons. 
peel fishing, like other things, too good to last. 
This physical decadence, however, is a thing to 
be expected and pardoned in the case of a fish 
that has undertaken the duties of parentage at 
such a tender age as the peel, for it is actually 
only a year or so old, reckoning from the time 
of its entering the sea as a smolt and when the 
date of its salmon life may justly be said to 
begin. Its previous two years’ babyhood in the 
river we may regard as a sort of embryonic 
stage, especially as it transforms itself at its 
close from a little smolt of two or three ounces 
into a fish of twice as many pounds, and all this 
inside a short twelve months in the sea. And 
then when a mere year old it starts back to the 
river again with an eye to spawning in the fol¬ 
lowing winter just like its betters. 
These fish vary considerably in size, even in 
the same river, and in the Shannon they often 
attain a weight of over ten pounds, though the 
average is rather less than half this. This name 
peel or grilse is of course purely conventional 
and local, and is to be taken as applied to sal¬ 
mon from the moment of entering the sea as 
smolts in May or later until the close of the 
following year, after which time it is held to 
be a salmon and fully mature. One interesting 
external indication of this period of maturity 
being reached which is familiar to all anglers 
is the filling in of the concavity of the tail. The 
sharply forked tail is an infallible sign of the 
grilse stage, but with every month's growth this 
becomes less marked, until finally the angle dis¬ 
appears and the tail is fully webbed. In this 
way a big peel may be easily distinguished from 
a small springer. A Shannon peel may be a 
pound or so heavier than a Bandon spring fish, 
but it will have a younger tail, and so the latter 
prove itself the older fish. But after all few 
peel relatively speaking enter the rivers at all, 
and here we are confronted with a salmon prob¬ 
lem of some considerable mystery. 
The migrant peel of May all spawn the fol¬ 
lowing winter and descend to the sea a month 
or two later as worn, emaciated little kelts or 
slats. No facts in ichthyology are better at¬ 
tested than these,- but millions of peel of the 
same age and even hatch decline to come up 
and remain as they are. About December, how¬ 
ever, a great number of them seem to think 
better of it and do actually come in, but there 
is no sign of spawning about them, not the 
slightest. They are, in fact, the small springers 
of the opening year with which the angler may 
expect some fine sport in February and March 
when fishing opens. They are in the most per¬ 
fect condition, their celibacy, whether voluntary 
or enforced, evidently agreeing excellently with 
them. 
How did they escape the call to parentage, or 
how did the others come to hear it and obey? 
So far science seems to hesitate to teach that 
spawning is a mere matter of caprice with sal¬ 
mon, like rising at a fly or leaving it alone, nor 
is it prepared to say that salmon in the sea, 
somewhat after the manner of the bee, select 
certain subjects from among the smolts on or 
about their arrival from the rivers, feed and 
discipline these in a certain way, and so wonder¬ 
fully and beautifully fit them for the work of 
procreation and the conservation of the race. 
Science is here wisely silent, though it appears 
we may now almost safely venture to assert by 
way of final summing up here that the springer 
with us is now known to enter the river once 
and once only, often remaining in the sea for 
some years before paying that one and only 
visit, and so only spawn once, some observers 
even daring to entertain doubts about that 
spawning once; that the great work of spawn- 
