St. Johnsbury Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1867-1919, 1884-07-17

Salmon Fishing.
A writer in the New York Sun gives
the following conversation concerning
salmon fishing on the Saguenay and
other Canadian rivers, which he re
Gently held with an angler, who won
distinction in angling circles last sea-
son 10y landing Il forty-pound salmon
on the Marguerite river, Canada, after
firing it out of an eight-hours' sulk:
The government sells leases to fifty
rivers, and receives a revenue from
them of about S400 apiece for the year.
1t is no uncommon thing for some Eng
lish sportsman or an American sports
man, for that matter, to pay more than
that to the lessee for the privilege of Il
few days fishing on some portion of Il
stream.
81 am loaded with luck as far as sal
mon killing in Canada goes. A party
of friends of mine have ten years
lease of IL river fifty miles long. They
have built cottages at different places
along it, and have spent a small for
tune to have things in shape for them
selves and their families and their
friends during the month they cut and
slash up and down its rapids and along
its banks. They invited me up there
last season, and | went. | have Just
got another little reminder that their
country will be open as usual this
season, and that there will be peg
for my hat and room for me to wet my
flies in the river. Yes, | am going.
This private club has only twelve
members, and each one may invite IL
friend. They have canoe for every
man, and two attendants for every
canoe. The fish that party kills cost
it more for each pound than yOu could
| buy a ton for here in New York.
"But it's worth to me every cent it
costs them. I'd rather catch one twenty
five pound salmon than II wagon load
of any other fish that swims. What
do you think of having to chase Il fish
two miles and more after you have got
your hook i'll it, and after you catch up
with it having to tussle with it like a
| GrGco- Roman wrestler for an hour,
may be, before it'll throw up the
sponge? Well, | had to do that last
season with a salmon, and he wasn't
an extra large one, either. He only
weighed twenty-three pounds. The
salmon rivers are all streams with
swift currents, whirling rapids and
high falls. You won't find this king
of fish in any other kind of water. 1t
don't make any difference how like Il
railroad the water may run, or how
steep the falls are, the salmon goes up
stream just as easy as it does down.
A salmon will 90 up an almost perpen-
! Iianlap foil rs Slinlr annl1 slid
down creased telegraph pole. If you
ever have chance to stand by the
Falls of Lorette, for instance, neal
Quebec, any day in July, you can see
him do it. These falls are a success
sion of steep tumbles, and the water
rushes over the rocks at thirty miles
an hour, but Mr.. Salmon wriggles his
graceful body up through those shutes,
the force of which would carry ton
of stone along without any trouble, as
easily us if the fish had a rope tied to
him and was being pulled up. 1t was
once n favOrite practice of the Indians
to gather at the foot of waterfalls and
spear the salmon as they made these
marvellous leaps, the precision with
which the savage launched the spear
and impaled the fish as he glided up
ward being almost as wonderful as the
leap itself.
Did you ever see a salmon take the
fly Well, then, when your first sal
mon appears to you you won't know
whether to faint or shout 'Halleluiah !,
The salmOn's haunt, when he is lying
i'll wait for pray, is in some deep, quiet
pool, where the water eddies and hesi-
tates, and then passes slowly on. From
the bank above this pool, or from your
canoe, you cast your fly on its surface
Now, the beauty about salmon fishing
is that your tackle isn't much heavier
than if you We're whipping some noun
tain brook for trout. Your road is
elastic and strong, and your reel must
hold at least three hundred feet of fine
silk line. Your fly drops lightly oil
the surface, and if the salmon is il
the humor he goes for it at once. Now,
a trout rises to a fly with a swoOp anC
whirl, and away he goes. Your sal
mon darts from his hiding place il
meteor fashion also, but, before h'
reaches the fly, he pauses within a few
inches of it. The piOus guides cross
themselves at this interesting moment
He is saying his grace they say. TheI
the salmon rises, opens his mouth, and
draws it in, and drops back towards
the bottom. That is, when he get:
himself into trouble. In droppin:
down he sets the hook firmly in th'
upper jaw, and then is when he begin
to get in trouble. AS soon as he feel
, the hook things begin to boil. Ava.
, he'll go, and take hundred feet o
your line off your reel before you know
. it. Then the chances are that he'll
take another course, perhaps straigh
toward you, and then you've got t
work to take up that slack line. A
+ soon as you draw it out on the reel
and he feels the pull on the hook
whiz he will come out of that waite
and shoot into the air dozen feet
3 Taking header, he darts down to th
depths again, tearing this way an
that way, round and round, and keep