CHAPTER IV.

RE-STOCKING SALMON WATERS

WHAT HAS BEEN

AND WHAT MAY BE.

There's a river in Macedon, and there is also, moreover, a river in Monmouth; it is called Wye at Monmouth, but it is out of my prains what is the name of the other river; but 'tis all one, 'tis so like as my fingers is to my fingers, and there is salmons in both.-[King Henry V., Act 4, sc. 7.

HE longing of twenty years has been gratified. I have had three weeks' salmon fishing in one of the best rivers on the continent; and as many of my readers are quite as fond of angling as I am myself, they will be interested in a brief record of my experience in this highest department of the gentle art.

All the most desirable salmon rivers in the three provinces of Quebec, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, are preserved. Not many years since it became alarmingly apparent that this kingly fish was being rapidly exterminated, and that, unless some stringent measures were adopted for its preservation, it would speedily become as scarce as it had heretofore been abundant. The experience of the

past sixty years furnished a melancholy lesson of the danger of neglect. For within that period, every stream, as far south as the river Credit (at the head of lake Ontario) and on both sides of that lake, lake Champlain and the St. Lawrence river down to Quebec, were as prolific in salmon as any of the rivers on the gulf or on the coast of Labrador. I myself remember when canoe-loads of salmon were brought to Toronto from the firstnamed river by the Indians and sold for a penny a pound; and it is within the recollection of the "oldest inhabitants" of Sodus, Oswego, Kingston, Prescott and Plattsburg, when salmon in the rivers in their neighborhood were quite as plenty as salmon trout, white fish or black bass now are. But now, a salmon in any of the waters south of Montreal is as rare as a Spanish mackerel north of the Highlands in the Hudson.

This depletion has resulted from three causes: 1. The destruction of the fish by net and spear; 2. The establishment of saw-mills and factories; and 3. The erection of dams which prevent the fish from resorting to their natural breeding places. Either of these causes would, in time, perform the work of extermination; but the latter is the most effective and the least excusable, because unnecessary. A very little attention to the construction of "ladders" to enable the fish to reach

their spawning beds would have insured their annual return without at all impeding "the march of improvement." But this simple provision was neglected (if thought of), and what with the net and spear and the poisonous substances introduced into the waters, the places which once knew the salmon in the greatest profusion will now know them no more forever—unless, indeed, the more perfect knowledge we now have of what is needful to restore the waste places on our inland waters shall be brought into practical use by individual enterprise or by governmental interposition.

Something is being done in this direction by our own State, but so parsimoniously and upon so petty a scale that very little can be accomplished. Our legislators, however, may do better as they grow wiser, although our inland fisheries may never become what they have been. There are difficulties in the way which neither care, science nor liberality can overcome. But enough may be accomplished, at a cost which would be voted a mere bagatelle when contrasted with the results, to bring back to the waters of our State a moderate abundance of this delicious fish, for which we are now dependent, for the most part, upon the distant provinces of Quebec, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. Indeed, even though New York should continue to creep in the laggard way in

which she has begun, there is still hope that something may be achieved in restoring salmon to the streams flowing into lake Ontario. The Upper Canada government has authorized two or three breeding establishments west of Kingston, and they have been so carefully and so wisely supervised by its agent (a Mr. Wilmot), that the very best results are foreshadowed. Several streams have been stocked, and already thousands of young fish, which were hopefully cast upon the waters, have, with that curious and mysterious instinct which is as unerring as the sun, returned to vindicate their sagacity and to encourage the agents of the government in their beneficent labors. If our own State authorities shall be equally wise and quadruple the powers and resources of our intelligent fish commissioners, the next generation may not be able to buy salmon for a penny a pound, but they will be procurable in such abundance as to render them as available as white fish or shad.

It was this experience of the past sixty years, and the recollection of the total depletion of the once prolific streams emptying into the upper St. Lawrence and lake Ontario, which impressed the authorities of the three lower Provinces with the necessity of enacting some stringent laws to prevent their own waters from becoming equally “barren and unfruitful." The first step was to

declare all the rivers (with a few exceptions) closed to all comers not duly authorized to fish there by the proper authorities. Then followed the appointment of a commission of fisheries one commissioner for each province. These officials are given the general supervision of all the inhibited rivers issuing licenses to those who are permitted to fish with seines in tide-water, and leases to those who wish the rivers for purely angling purposes. The prices paid for licenses for seine-fishing vary with the presumed prolific character of the fishing grounds, from $100 to $500; and so of the rivers leased to anglers, varying from $100 to $600. The latter is the annual sum paid by the lessee of the Cascapedia, where I have had my first experience in salmon fishing. The seines are not to obstruct the entire of the channel in any river, and ordinarily do not cover more than one-tenth of the water surface; so that, while many fish are caught, as is proper, ten times as many find an unobstructed passage to the fresh water, which they instinctively seek, with the regularity of the seasons, to breed. The leases for angling include all of the rivers lying above tide-water, and restrict the lessee to hook and line. Spearing and all other modes of fish-taking (except with the fly) are prohibited under penalties which would be deemed severe were they not indispensable to the preservation of the waters from