Sept, 28, 1907.] 
After a little enforced rest we renewed cast- 
ng, but it was of no use; the fish had seen all 
of us he cared for, and, though we kept an eye 
on Big John Pool for two weeks, we had to 
conclude that it was a case of too previous 
urrival for both of us, the hunted and the hunter. 
} The next day found us as far down as Dead 
Man’s Pool to tide water. A little above, in the 
|Kid’s Run, for ten seconds, we thought we had 
imade a fast hitch, but, with a single rush into 
the air, a run of thirty feet, and the return of 
lpur fly, our hopes ended as fruitless as a dream. 
Still it may be that it was better than a drean’, 
for dreams will fade into the forgotten, but such 
lt, heavy tug, such a dash for liberty, the premis- 
‘ing whirl of reel, and sad, unspoken good-bye, 
will rise up many a day in the memory. 
After a long period of alternate casting and 
lresting, the fly had been accepted as worthy of 
ithe game, and, so: certain were we when he 
‘began to run that our patience was about to 
‘be rewarded, that a joyous exclamation escaped, 
‘afterward ridiculed as born of “love’s young 
\dream.” But the guide kept busy and assured 
lus that he scaled him at fifteen pounds and a 
ifew immaterial ounces. Those guides are not 
‘so very unsophisticated in the mammon of un- 
righteousness after all, though they do not travel 
‘far. Flattery grows everywhere. 
The fast falling stream foretold poor luck for 
some days; therefore we made a trip to the 
‘Grand Codroy, selecting Seven Mile Pool, about 
‘twenty miles further up the railroad. The time- 
Itable folder did not mention the shack where we 
iwere allowed to get off the train. It is the rule 
‘of the Reid railroad to cater to the traffic of the 
‘sportsmen by dropping them at almost any well 
‘known pool on all the streams along which the 
‘tracks run, and this creates a very kindly regard 
‘for the management. 
' Seven Mile Pool is quite long and fairly deep, 
"having a high bank on one side along which the 
/water makes a rapid run. Either the fish were 
off or we were too early, for not a fin did we 
isee. Later in the day we walked down two 
lmiles to Five Mile Pool, another fine place, but 
/we got nothing better there. Nevertheless the 
|day was one of great pleasure, full of sunshine, 
|fairly free from insect pests, and made hopeful 
fat all hours by every tradition of former good 
\luck that the guides could recall. We signalled 
|the train in the barrens with a red bandanna, 
one of our party slid off a big tussock of moss 
and spilled one of Joe’s best cups of tea, and, in 
|the gathering dusk we scrambled from the ditch 
jaboard the cars. Nobody grumbled or thought 
jof the morrow as without something sufficiently 
|entertaining to keep us on a confident and happy 
| move. 
| The quivering fish on the pebbly beach weighs 
|but little in the scales by which you measure en- 
| joyment compared to the many hours when the 
expedition is uppermost, when you meditate upon 
and select the tackle, when the journey is on 
and free from business cares, when you imagine 
the pools, the leaping fish, the rush to the fly, 
the tug, the long runs of line as the spool is 
watched to see if it is going to hold out, and 
the glorious victory which you make a trifle 
more certain at home than on the ground. It 
is the old chestnut of anticipation and imagina- 
tion that has come trailing along with all the 
generations. Endless, tiresome wading, aching 
wrists and shoulders, all hide beneath the sleep 
and dreams that precede the morrow. 
We worked patiently and waited for the rain 
of Sunday. This made the salmon shift pools to 
one stretch of water further up, where changed 
conditions seemed to renew their curiosity or 
appetite, whichever it is that makes them take 
the fly. And so it came about that on Monday 
/ we took our lunch over the plump sides of an 
| eight-pounder, a creature that had demonstrated 
all the forceful, peculiar and time honored antics 
of his royal ancestors. To forget and to smile 
largely was as easy as though this had been our 
opening day. We were deep down in com- 
placent satisfaction, when the companion of our 
trip allowed his guide carelessly to drop a twenty- 
pounder on the weak sills of the piazza. It was 
a rude and disturbing jar, only to be quieted by 
philosophy. Food and age were responsible for 
the overlapping size of the animal. The offer 


FOREST AND STREAM. 
499 

=f 
fate 
Ie 
I 
SEVEN-MILE POOL ON 
of a fly and its acceptance on such a day was 
not a matter confined to one single pool. To 
have ripped the hook out after the salmon gave 
it a good set would not have been proper for 
a companion of gentle instincts. When the fish 
showed that he was weary of the struggle and 
life hardly worth the living, to have dragged him 
through the water any longer in pain would have 
been disgusting to the gaffer. And so the jar 
to our satisfied composure was perfectly proper, 
and not exceptional in a sportsman’s life. 
As the effect of Sunday’s rain began to dis- 
appear, Tuesday we again went up on the Grand. 
The great pools there are at the Forks, also 
about a mile below, and so on for two miles. 
Besides, there are some excellent waters on the 
two branches. Two days netted the two fisher- 
men one salmon and four grilse. The rest_of 
the week was spent in vain invitations. One 
bright day, when no ripple came upon the run 
at Red Bank, we went to the top of the hill and 
looked down to see the torpedoes that every now 
and then made such a commotion in the surface. 
There they lay, opening and closing their gills, 
twelve of them, as unimpressionable as suckers. 
There was one mighty old commodore that 
looked as though he were all of four feet long. 
The guide gave him to me as a bargain at forty 
pounds. Nobody will probably test him on the 
scales, for he has been advertising that pool too 
long to care to take on any new experiences. 
What a fund of stories about sportsmen he must 
have to draw from when he meets his friends 
on the spawning grounds, or at the sea side rest- 
ing for the capelin to digest after dinner. He 
will come to the surface and churn the water 
up as though he were a side-wheeler turning 
round, but not for love of any store bug. In 
a run below we saw four more, one of whom had 
lost a patch of skin off his neck in some net, and 
it fell to our lot to land him a few days 
later. 
A rainy, wild and windy Saturday, and more 
rain Sunday. The change of water was effec- 
tive. One fisherman, who had perhaps observed 
Saturday as a day of rest, caught a ten-pounder 
the next day. Those who had not observed the 
Jewish day began with good hopes Monday. By 
10 o’clock we had secured a nine-pounder after 
a half hour’s battle, and before going to lunch 
we had another of seven and one half pounds. 
How the spice of these two battles gave flavor 

THE GRAND CODROY,. 
to the food! How good-natured and self-satis- 
fied we felt all the afternoon, although trying 
to make the day more of a red-letter one! Late 
that afternoon the sills of the piazza and our 
complacency had another jar when the gentle- 
man from Halifax came in and threw down one 
of 23, another of 19, and his twelve-year-old boy 
one of 12 pounds. Wonderful doings on that 
rise of water! Jock Scott on No, 6 single hooks 
did all the business. But it was pretty much all 
in after the water receded. 
We saw very few grilse taken on this stream. 
Maybe it was too early for them. On the Hum- 
ber at Grand Falls they were taking about a 
dozen grilse to every salmon. But the grown 
salmon were there, and almost without number, 
resting without ambition for flies under the 
foaming water of the falls, manifesting their 
presence by incessant leaping. We never before 
understood the plainly distinguishing mark of 
the grilse, his forked tail. When that disappears 
in a square tail he receives the honor mark of 
a salmon. That is said to come with his second 
return from his trip to the salt water. How long 
he remains in salt water to change from a smolt 
to a grilse we have not learned. With the change 
to a salmon comes a bronze sheen and a more 
portly form, less high kicking, more discretion 
about taking the fly, and the art of jigging or 
sulking when hooked. As the salmon progresses 
up stream and nears or reaches his spawning 
grounds he takes on a dark grayish color and 
loses much of his beauty. 
There is some danger that the keen zest of 
the trout fishermen will be impaired when he 
becomes a worshipper of the royal fish, still the 
seasons of the two are well apart, and the beauty 
of the large brook trout is so superior, and his 
power to fight for freedom so great and endur- 
ing, that a person warm with real sporting blood 
can hardly learn to despise his first love. 
There is a distinctive charm to bass, trout and 
salmon fishing, each winning ardent attention be- 
cause one is not the mere enlargement or refine- 
ment of the best features of the other. 
This section of the island has not been settled 
for farming more than the years of half a genera- 
tion. From what we learned of the early fishing 
it is plain to see that the years of “rank good” 
fishing will not be many. Then will follow the 
moderate sport that is fully as enjoyable as the 
glut of primitive days. G. B. F 

