Page:Tourist's Maritime Provinces.djvu/70

46 of piano wire. The bait is mackerel, or "tinkers," gaspereau or herring. Nova Scotia Waltonians confess that their fish is not so sporty in proportion to its weight as the leaping tunny gaffed off the California shore, but maintain that to conquer a sea creature of a quarter to half a ton's weight is excitement enough, even if he is a bit clumsy.

The salmon is the sphinx of fishes. Less is known of its habits and impulses than of any denizen of fresh or salt water. We are told by wise Indians that the salmon of each river comprise a distinct race. When they come from the deep to spawn in the streams, they invariably return to the same river in which they themselves have been spawned. Fish from, the same water average the same size. A river known for the lustiness of its salmon may rise from the same source as another stream in which only small fish are found. The salmon of the Atlantic coast, contrary to the habit of its Pacific cousin, takes the fly in fresh water. Why they rise to bait at all is an enigma since it has been proven that while in river pools for months at a time they maintain a rigid fast.

The young of the genus Salmo are called alevin at the spawning, then parrs, then smolts at the third or fourth year, when they go to sea, then grilse on their return, weighing three to six