Secrets of the salmon

Front matter

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Preface

Of all kinds of fishing practised in all parts of the world, salmon fishing is still generally regarded as the most interesting. This sport is so ancient that a lore has grown up about it and customs and methods have become so fixed that it seems almost a sacrilege to change them, or to attempt anything in the way of innovation. Being an inventor by inheritance, nature, and profession, I happen to be one of those who have no regard for convention, or what others do, unless it appeals to my sense of what is right and reasonable for the result to be accomplished, and it was in this spirit that I approached salmon fishing. My object was to hook and play the fish on an artificial fly, no matter how it was accomplished and whether I followed the accepted customs or not. In this way I have studied the sport for the last twelve or fifteen years, and have succeeded in devising methods of fishing and tackle which cause salmon to rise in any water and under all conditions, so

[ ix ]

PREFACE

that I can safely say that in any of our Atlantic rivers, where there are salmon and where they can be seen in the pools, I can always raise a number each day and generally secure a good catch if I am skilful enough not to bungle the casts and the hooking of the fish to too great an extent. The methods used are largely of my own devising, as I had never heard of using a dry fly or nymph fly for the salmon before I used them for the purpose myself. My friends Ambrose Monell and George La Branche have worked on this interesting problem with me and have given me the benefit of their knowledge and experience. We have fished a number of seasons together in the Upsalquitch and tried out many experiments. In order to understand why it is necessary to have other methods than those in use by the regular fishermen we must look to the habits of the salmon when in fresh water. The science of psychology applies to fish as well as to all other members of the animal kingdom. To understand salmon we must study salmon psychology as well as know the salmon's physical habits and life history. Even with this knowledge one discovers that the salmon

PREFACE

often does most unusual and unaccountable things, some of which will be mentioned in later pages. Perhaps it is because the salmon is away from his natural home in the sea and placed in a confined environment subject to changes from day to day and hour to hour. Perhaps these sometimes get on his nerves. Although I understand him better than most people and am a little like Kipling's captain in "Captains Courageous," who caught more cod than the rest of the fleet because he had a mind like a cod and could think like a cod, I am still far from a complete knowledge of the fish and only write what I have observed and experienced, at the request of my friends, for the benefit of brother salmon fishermen who have had so many blank days in low clear water.

My experiences as related in this volume deal only with salmon of Canadian rivers running toward the Atlantic Ocean, and those of New Foundland. My fishing in Scotland and Wales was limited to one visit, and this was taken before I really knew anything about salmon fishing.

I have endeavored to furnish as much detailed information concerning tackle as possible, as I

[ xi ]

PREFACE

find an almost complete lack of such material in books I have read. The chapter on the appearance of the fly to the fish was written in order to give the facts on which I have based my methods of fishing. In working it out I have obtained much useful information which I hope will be of value in the future.

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Contents

PAGE

Preface ix

CHAPTER

Chapter I The Life History And Habits Of The

SALMON

Salmon come into fresh-water rivers only to spawn. When they first arrive from the sea the melt and roe are only partly developed, and it takes from three to six months in our rivers to grow these up to the point where they are ready to function. During this period the fish is believed to eat nothing, and the stomach shrinks in size and loses all digestive power. The salmon draws his energy during this long fast from the fat stored between the flakes of the flesh and just under the skin. He loses weight constantly during the time he is in fresh water. A fish weighing thirty-five pounds in June will not weigh over twenty to twenty-five pounds when he is ready to spawn — perhaps even less.

Spawning takes place in our Eastern fresh-water rivers and streams usually in October and early November. The eggs wash into the crevices between the stones, and are mostly covered up with gravel and small stones by the action of the tail of the female. After spawning, most of the spent fish find their way to the sea in a greatly emaciated condition. Some fish remain in the larger pools of some rivers until spring, and are known as kelts, or black salmon; these go to the sea the following May or June.

The eggs hatch in ninety to one hundred and twenty days, and the small parr, or young salmon, lie among the stones with the egg-sack being slowly absorbed into the body for about a month before they begin to feed on insect life. I believe the habits formed by the parr have a profound influence on its behavior on its return to fresh water as an adult fish. Any one watching the little parr, along the shores of the river and in the little back waters and shallow pockets, will be struck with the way they take small insects. This summer I sat on the beach and watched some of them carefully. They were about one and one-quarter to one and one-half inches long, and were in about four inches of water. Most of the time they rested close to the bottom just moving their fins. Every little while they darted out a few inches and seized some small insect in the water which I could not see at all. The rush was swift, just like that of an adult salmon for a fly. They then returned to their former position in the current, protected by the backwater of the stones on the bottom. They behave exactly as a large salmon does when it takes a wet fly.

Toward evening parr may be seen taking small flies and other insects from the surface. They come up and make a round ring on the surface just as do the large fish. Sometimes they leap clear of the water. One evening while watching them with my son and daughter, we threw pieces of straw or very small chips of wood on the surface to see what they would do. In many cases they came up close to them and did not take them, just as the salmon often refuses the fly; in other instances they seized the chip and carried it below the surface, sometimes making off a foot or more before ejecting it. This corresponds with the way salmon carry a fly in their mouths for some distance under water. These little parr were getting their education on insects. My guide told me this summer that he had several times found maple seeds with their little wings in the stomach of salmon, and this was the only thing he had ever found there. The larger parr seem to feed, to a great extent, on surface insects and nymphs rising from the bottom on their way to hatch at the top. Toward evening the surface of a salmon river is all dappled with the rings and splashes of these parr taking flies. In this way the growing salmon establishes his habits of feeding on insect food over a period of eighteen months or so. Brain-tracks so firmly impressed on a growing organism are not likely to be wholly obliterated by a subsequent change of environment, and it may require only a very small stimulus to bring them to the surface of consciousness.

As an illustration of the persistence of habits of long standing, I should like to tell of an experience which is somewhat parallel to the early habits of the salmon recurring in later life. For about twenty years I used a foot-power lathe in my workshop. It was my custom to start this by pulling the belt with my left hand to bring the crank to the upper dead-centre, and then raise my right leg and start the foot pedal. About six years ago I put electricity in my workshop, and placed the switch controlling the power at the right above the lathe. When I came to start the power I invariably raised my right leg as I turned on the switch with my right hand. The motion was involuntary and almost irresistible. This persisted for about three years, and I still do it at times. In other words, during long years I had formed a brain-track corresponding to certain physical motions, and this persisted in operating even when it was absolutely useless. It was on reflecting on this matter one day on a salmon river that the similarity of this action, and that of the salmon taking the fly, struck me. The salmon has only two years of habit formation while I have twenty, but on the other hand I had thousands of other impressions to obliterate it where the salmon had only a few. No doubt illustrations in their own experience will occur to every reader of motions formed by habits of long standing which persist after their use has disappeared. Of course the human organism is complex, while the fish is low in the scale, having no thinking or reflective centres in its brain. It is natural that fixed habits should be more persistent in the fish. This is my explanation for the salmon taking the fly when he cannot digest it. When he returns to fresh water from his stay at the sea the stomach immediately begins to shrink and loses the power of digestion entirely. This is to make room for the growing egg or melt-sack in the body cavity. It is always found that salmon ship best if not cleaned, whereas other fish keep longer if they are cleaned. This is because there is no pepsin secreted in the salmon's stomach in fresh water, and the stomach will not digest itself after death, as is the case with other fish. This is the cause of ordinary fish getting soft rapidly. If the salmon is cleaned, the cutting of the flesh is sure to infect the surfaces with putrefactive bacteria, whereas if left alone it is practically sterile.

In our Eastern rivers parr live until August of the second summer, when they gradually make their way to the sea. In September there are very few left. Just before they go to the sea they change their parr markings for the silvery appearance of the adult salmon, and at the same time the tail becomes more forked. They are then called smolt. I have only seen a few smolt in my own experience, probably because later in the year I have not often been near the sea. This year in July the upper waters of the Restigouche were full of large parr about four to five inches long. When I returned in August the river was almost free of them, and I only saw a few. They were working their way to the sea, and probably took on the smolt stage near tide-water, as there were no smolt in the upper waters. In Scotland parr remain in the rivers over two winters and go out the following spring. The difference in habits must be due to selection of those which only stay one winter here, because of the very hard and destructive conditions in our rivers in the winter time. In Scotland there is little ice frozen on the bottom, and the little fish have a better chance.

The growth of the salmon in the ocean is very rapid, and has been subject to many studies in England, where it has been observed by tagging smolt and getting records from the tagged fish when caught. They have been known to return in nine to eleven months, weighing three and one-half pounds as grilse, and in two years as ten to twelve pound salmon, and in three years as twenty to twenty-one pound salmon or even larger. Many forty or fifty pound salmon have been found to be returning to the river for the first time.

It was supposed until recently that salmon always returned to the same river, but the marking of the smolt has disposed of this theory. Salmon tagged in one river have been caught returning in other rivers. One fish marked in Nova Scotia was caught in New Foundland. It is quite likely that the fish which go far away from the mouth of the native river to secure an adequate food supply may return to other rivers, while those which feed near their own river while they are in the sea usually return to their native river.

Fortunately the scales of the salmon furnish us with much information about their life history. Scales are composed of layers added on from below. As each layer is a little larger than the previous one it makes a ring on the outer surface. Sixteen such rings are made each year and we can, therefore, tell the age of the fish by counting the rings. When the fish returns to fresh water to spawn, he does not eat, and therefore the process of scale production is arrested and no rings are made while he is in fresh water. The edges of the scale become worn, and a mark is formed around the smooth base of the scale which enables us to identify the spawning periods.

The scales I have selected for illustration from among a large number each show some different phase of life and some peculiarity. I have no doubt a large number of other facts might be brought out by a more detailed study.

Figure 1 is from a twenty-one-pound female Restigouche River fish. The illustration is marked so that the rings can be identified at a glance. The parr rings are closer together than the sea rings, probably because the fresh water does not

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Figure 2, scale from a twenty -one-pound male fish, shows twenty-four parr rings. This fish probably went to sea in August, and returned four years and ten months later. The age of the fish was six years and four months when caught. It had not spawned before, as the base of the scale shows no line.

Figure 3, scale is taken from a twenty-eightpound Restigouche fish which went to sea at one year and three months, probably early June. It returned and spawned at the age of two years and eight months, as shown by the dark line on the base of the scale. The total age of the fish was six years and three months when caught.

Figure 4 scale is taken from an eighteen-pound fish taken on the Terra Nova River in New Foundland. It went to sea in one and one-half years, probably in August, and returned and spawned one year later at the age of two and one-half years. It was five years and seven months old when it was caught.

In most salmon rivers I have fished I have noticed two kinds of salmon: the one round and deep with the head small for the size of the body; the other shaped more like a mackerel, much longer for his depth and a proportionately larger head. The second type salmon is never as large as the other, especially the females; the male fish of this long shape sometimes reach twenty-five pounds, but rarely larger. By observing the scales on both types of fish I have noticed that the mackerel-shaped fish returned to the river early, generally the first or second year, whereas the round-shaped fish stayed in the sea longer and got more complete growth. The months of starvation and hardship no doubt stunt the fish, and leave a permanent physiological effect on

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n a; p o him. In our rivers grilse are always males, while in Scotland female grilse are common. This accounts for the fact that the female fish average much larger in size here, as they have not been stunted. The formation of the coast and the nature of the sea food have a great effect on the size of the salmon. If when the smolt go to sea they find an abundance of food close to the mouth of the river, in shallow bays and estuaries, they do not wander far out into the ocean or along the coast. In the spring when the great freshets occur in the rivers they sense the fresh water, which is often carried great distances over the top of the heavier salt water by the wind, and their spawning instinct is stimulated and they follow the fresh water and return to the river. I have seen them in Alexander Bay, on the coast of New Foundland, six or eight miles from the mouth of the Terra Nova River, swimming slowly along the surface with their back fins out of water, making for the river. The whole surface of the bay was marked by little waves made by their back fins, all going in one direction. In New Foundland, on the east coast, food is available close to the mouths of the rivers in the shallow bays, and I doubt if the salmon ever leave them. I have noticed scales in many instances when the fish went to sea in November or December and returned in June, and did the same thing the following year. Naturally these fish are stunted, and such rivers only rarely contain large fish. They usually run from six to ten pounds. On the west coast, however, the bays do not furnish as much food, and more fish leave and cruise in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. These fish stay out longer and are, therefore, larger in general, although it is rare to see many fish of over twenty to twenty-five pounds.

The rivers of New Brunswick emptying into the Bay of Chaleur show types of salmon having different habits when they go to sea. The Cascopedia fish are nearly all large, from twenty to fifty pounds. These fish seem to winter off the south coast of New Foundland in about four hundred feet of water, where they have been caught in considerable numbers with trawl lines. They only return every few years to spawn and are, therefore, all large. In the Restigouche both types of fish are seen, and evidently some of them stay comparatively near the mouth of the river and find their food there, while others stay further away and get a heavier growth. It is rather curious to note that the greater number of big fish go up the streams entering the Restigouche from the north: the Matepedia, Patepedia, and the Kedgewick. In the Tay in Scotland, larger fish are taken in the nets on the north bank than on the south bank.

The smaller fish go up the Upsalquitch and the main Restigouche on the south. The stocking done by the hatchery is all done with spawn from the large round fish, and while some of the spawn has been deposited on the Upsalquitch for a number of years, the size of the fish taken in the river has not materially increased. Perhaps some time we may understand more of these matters, but it will only be by careful and observant study. The first salmon come into the river soon after the ice goes out, but not in very large numbers. There is generally a good run in May, and from then on they keep on coming until September. Their habits are quite different when they first come in from those they exhibit later on. They then seem to prefer the very swift water, they are more active, and certainly take a wet fly far better than later on in the season. It was for this early stage of the fishing that the regular salmon-fishing methods and flies were devised, and up to the present time no better way has been found to catch fresh run salmon.

When rivers rise due to rains at any time in the season, salmon seem to revert to those habits for a few days and are easily caught on the regular wet-fly tackle. It requires little skill to hook one, as he will hook himself if the fly is only where he can see it. These are the conditions the regular salmon fisherman prays for, not knowing, poor fellow, that he is missing his finest sport in not knowing how to follow the habits of the fish.

As the water drops and becomes warmer the salmon tend more and more to settle in the pools. Some nights they move from pool to pool up the river, or they may even go many miles in a single night. I have seen them travelling in the daytime over the bars, slowly making their way and resting every little while. But generally when the height of the water does not favor their moving on they stay in the pools which suit them. It is often hard to discover why they like one pool and not another. One year one pool will be full of fish all the season and the next, almost empty. Another year the conditions may be reversed. Sometimes this is caused by changes in the bottom due to freshets, or by logs, or by changes of depth, but at times I have been unable to see any changes in the pools at all. I believe it is caused by the first run of fish having stopped in the pools due to daylight overtaking them as they were travelling up. After that each day as new fish came up they joined the bunch as the others went on. The first bunch acted as decoys. There is a settled belief among all guides that if a pool is dynamited salmon will not stop there for a year or two again. I know a number of instances of this, but it may not have been entirely due to dynamiting. It seems hard to believe that dynamite would leave any trace after a winter freshet and ice.

If one watches salmon in a pool early in a season he will notice that they are likely to swim around in bunches, up to about ten or eleven o'clock in the morning, and seem restless. These fish are generally getting ready to leave the next night, and you will not find them there the following morning. After eleven they seem to settle down for the day and take up their positions at the tail of the pool or along the ledges. Sometimes when it is hot they seem to sleep and no kind of fly fishing will move them, but generally they can be caught if the fly is presented in the right way. Guides sometimes throw stones into the pools to wake them up. Toward evening they again become restless, especially if they are going to travel that night. Sometimes when they are bent on going up the river when night approaches they will not pay any attention to the fly, no matter how it is placed.

As the season advances and the water warms and becomes lower, they seem to adopt particular pools as homes, and I have often noticed the same net-marked fish in the same pool for several weeks at a time. He may never go any farther up for all I know. At this stage of the season the regular salmon fishing with a wet fly ceases, and few fish can be taken except in some very favored spot and at certain times of day or when there is a change of weather.

It was this condition which I fortunately encountered on my first three salmon trips, and which obliged me to find some way to catch salmon when they were hard to take. On the first trip I caught one, on the second trip six, and on the third, several hundred — I should hate to tell how many. Fifty-two was the largest day's catch. The Bay men who had failed to get any fish in their nets, due to freshets, called me "the human net," as I gave them the fish. I was getting more than they got in the nets, and they were glad to get them. I mention these facts to arouse interest and study in the most interesting fish we have. In the salmon we have a fish changing his habits from day to day, and even during the same day. He is unstable and never settled. He is a wanderer and has the doubtful habits of this class. If you want to catch him at all times you must learn to know him in all his moods, and know just what to do to meet them. Don't ever feel discouraged; if there are salmon there it is right up to you to know your business and use your brains and skill to make him take a fly, and I can assure you it can be done if you are good enough at it. I don't pretend to be, but I have had so many surprises in getting fish in large numbers when I had almost given up hope, that I am confident that we could always take them if we knew enough and had sufficient skill. It is this which gives salmon fishing a charm all its own. It is a sport with an interest not equalled by any other.

Chapter II

The tackle required for a complete salmon outfit is far more complicated and expensive than that required for any other form of fresh-water fishing. I have found by observing many fishermen that suitable tackle is little understood, and only few anglers have at hand what they must use on the river if they are to be successful in all kinds of water and weather. In fact, I have only met one man in all my travels who had a proper equipment to take advantage of every contingency. It is for this reason that the present chapter describes in detail what I have found useful and necessary to get good sport at all times.

There seems to be a lack of definite knowledge on the part of fishermen as to the power of their rods and the strength of their leaders. In order to clear up this matter, and make my subsequent description of fishing plain, I have taken the various sizes of Leonard rods I have been using and obtained the amount they will pull in various positions when they are strained as much as is safe without danger of putting a permanent set in the wood. Of course this point is a matter of judgment, but I believe the experiments were fairly consistent with the best fishing practice. The results are presented in a series of diagrams showing the position of the rod and the pull exerted. The amount of the hooking jerk was determined by striking against a light spring-scales with twenty feet of line out, with the rod in the vertical position, and with the butt at an average of forty-five degrees turned toward the water. It is shown in the diagram for each rod. (Diagrams, Figures 5 and 6, table 1.)

TABLE 1

Rod

Puli. ik Ounces, Maximum

Sate Strain

Butt Back 3°°

Butt Vertical

Butt Forward 60° to Horizontal

Butt Forward 45° to Horizontal

Butt Forward 30° to Horizontal

Striking

Butt Vertical

Striking

Butt Forward 45° to Horizontal

Length

Wt.

Oz.

7 ft.

18 25

3 8

10 8

14 18 22

3 10 16

14 16 20 28 26

7 20

24 20

35 32

12 36 28 26 48 64 48 64

18 48 48 48

88 112

80 132