One Was Landed 
OR some years a few 
friends have owned 
fishing rights on a 
little river on the 
| north shore of the 
St. Lawrence. There 
is only sixteen miles 
| between the lake and 
| the mouth of the 
river, and a consid- 
erable stretch of that is not suitable for 
salmon fishing, but the extraordinary 
thing is that the average size of the fish 
caught is larger than on many of the 
bigger and better known salmon rivers. 
In four years, although their number 
has not been great, the average size 
of the salmon caught has been about 
twenty-three pounds. 
This little river is quite in the wilder- 
ness. There is no road, no telegraph 
or telephone, and not even a post office. 
The only manner of reaching it which 
our party have been able to discover is 
to hire a stout boat with a gasoline en- 
gine to make a special trip across the 
river St. Lawrence, which is thirty miles 
wide at this point. 
The three other members of our 
party had been on the river for a week 
when I discovered it was possible for 
me to enjoy two weeks salmon fishing, 
and I took a chance of getting across to 
the north shore on the sailing boat that 
takes the mail from Rimouski to Ber- 
simis, with the idea that I would hire a 
boat at Bersimis to take me the thirty 
miles to the salmon river. About half 
past ten the night before the mail boat 
was expected, the proprietor of the 
little hotel at Rimouski came in to tell 
me that the supply boat for one of the 
large pulp wood camps was coming in 
at eleven o’clock and would likely leave 
again at midnight, and I might take the 
chance of crossing on it, and in some 
way cover the distance of four miles be- 
tween their camp and Bersimis. I took 
the chance and arrived there at five 
o’clock in the morning. I was treated 
with the greatest of kindness, and ar- 
rangements were made for a_ very 
modest charge to send me all the way 
to the salmon river in the afternoon. 

S there is no traffic on this little 
river, the arrival of my canoe 
brought out the three members of our 
party in some astonishment as to the 
reason. One of them, who is a Senator, 
Two Salmon 
and the Other Escaped—Which Fish Gave the 
Angler the Greater Thrill? 
By J. P. BELL 
expected they had come to take him 
away on account of some important 
bill being before the Senate. Others 
thought it was the fisheries inspector, 
but all were most hearty in their wel- 
come in spite of the fact that they in- 
sisted I had only brought a candy box- 
full of provisions to feed me for two 
weeks. 
Until the date of my arrival the 
salmon fishing had been very poor. The 
river was high and turbulent, and what 
fish were there would not take the fly. 
This condition improved gradually dur- 
ing the first week, but the real sport 
commenced the second week. 
I hardly know whether to begin tell- 
ing about fish I have lost or fish I 
have caught. Only a keen angler knows 
the mortification and self-blame which 
he is able to pile up when a good fish 
gets away. I think I must tell just 
one hard luck story. 
I had been fly casting patiently for 
over an hour at the “Cunningham” pool, 
when suddenly I had a strike and found 
myself fast to a heavy fish. As I had 
already lost one through my tackle 
breaking I determined to treat this one 
gently. 
OR half an hour he was what our 
French Canadian guides called 
“tranquile,” that is to say, he stayed 
in one spot, probably behind a boulder 
on the river bottom, and nosed about 
within a radius of a few feet. Before 
this period had elapsed my left hand 
had fallen asleep two or three times 
owing to the tension of keeping the 
rod in a quarter circle at a point about 
opposite the fish. He then commenced 
his rushes, three or four times leaping 
bodily out of the water and taking out 
line very fast. I followed him up as 
quickly as possible, but had to go care- 
fully owing to the rapids, but while I 
got abreast of him several times, he 
never really stopped until he had car- 
ried me a mile and a half down the 
river, through three sets of rapids, and 
finally dodged in behind the boulders in 
the heaviest and most troubled water 
of them all—the Egane rapids. Be- 
fore my canoemen could bring it to a 
stop the canoe was considerably be- 
low the fish, and then ensued a long 
patience-trying period when the fish 
rested behind first one boulder and then 
another in his gradual descent of the 
rapids until he got into a very deep 
place filled with sharp rocks. There 
the water was tumbling in a torrent, 
and it seemed impossible to dislodge 
him. 
T was now four hours since I had 
hooked him, and I got the impres- 
sion that my line had looped around 
a snag or a boulder in the river bed 
and that the fish was gone, but on 
paddling the canoe across below I could 
plainly feel him. I gave him all the 
tackle would stand, without result, and 
then crossed above, but was still un- 
able to dislodge him. The old guide 
who had spent a life time on the river 
said he was a large fish over thirty 
pounds, and he thought he was “gi- 
gotte,” that is, foul-hooked, probably 
under one of the front fins, and that 
the only way to dislodge him was to try 
to roll him over by putting a long and 
steady strain on the line in various posi- 
tions. I felt this was a desperate 
measure, but was tired of the delay, 
so tried first at one point and then at 
another all the strain the tackle could 
bear, until the inevitable result fol- 
lowed with the breaking of the line 
some ten feet above the leader and the 
loss of the fish I had fought with for 
over four hours. 
I felt then and still feel that if I had 
had more experience I should have 
landed that fish, for, if I had insisted 
on the guides manipulating the canoe 
into a point in the torrent just immedi- 
ately above him and reeled in my line 
until I had a direct overhead purchase, 
I think he would have had to give up. 
These moments of gloom have been 
experienced by every fisherman, but 
are usually forgotten in the pleasure 
of remembering the killing and landing 
of another fish. 
A few days later I was fishing at the 
head of a heavy rapid in water where 
the guides assured me some could be 
taken, but which seemed to me to be too 
shallow, too fast, and wild for any fish 
to be foolish enough to rest on his way 
up from the sea. 
HAD not been casting more than 
twenty minutes, and gradually work- 
ing my way down along the shore, for 
here it was possible to wade—when 
with a sudden flash of silver my reel 
(Continued on page 186) 

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