Chapter III: Sea Trout

_Salmo Trutta Marina--Salmon Trout--White Trout._

This fish corresponds precisely with the description given by Dr. De Kay of the Speckled Trout, _Salmo Fontinalis_, except in the following particulars:

I can find no teeth in the vomer or central part of the roof of the mouth any more than I can find them on the common brook trout, and I have examined great numbers of the latter for the purpose. The pectorals are nearly a transparent white, slightly tinged with red at the origin of the rays, except that the second ray is darkish. The first ray of the ventrals is yellow, the second dark, the third and the others orange fading into white; the origin of the ventrals is directly under that of the first dorsal. The first ray of the anal fin is orange, the second and others dark green, growing lighter toward the tail, the origin of the second and third rays being yellowish. The scales are very small, imbedded in the skin, and there are neither scales nor defined spots on the gill-covers. The fin-rays are as follows:

Br. 12; D. 13; P. 13; V. 8; A. 10; C. 19-6/6.

The branchial rays seem to differ sometimes, the same fish having eleven on one side and twelve on the other, and the highest one is a half ray or small plate. The anal, properly speaking, has eleven rays, but the first is so delicate and so lost in the fleshy part of the fin, that it is hardly distinguishable.

The coloring of these fish differs greatly from that of the common trout, but it is universally conceded that color is no test or distinction of species. When fresh run from the sea, and when still inhabiting the salt water, they are gloriously brilliant; their backs a liquid bluish green, the under part flashing like molten silver. The spots and scarlet specks on their sparkling sides are of a purer tone, and the lower fins more slender and delicate.

They are found in the bays of Prince Edward’s Island, in the harbors of New Brunswick, and in all the gulf and river of St. Lawrence and its lower tributaries. In Frank Forrester’s “Fish and Fishing,” a letter from Mr. Perley, the British Commissioner of Fisheries, is quoted, page 123, in which he says these fish do not ascend into purely fresh water. In this I am reluctantly, out of respect to his great experience as a fisherman and high standing in scientific attainments, compelled to differ from him. I have unquestionably taken these fish far above tide water, and have the best authority for saying that usually, if not invariably, the larger trout at least ascend to the head-waters of the mountain streams to spawn. I venture to say that no large sea trout are taken in the tide water after the last, and rarely after the first of August. It is probable that he has been misled by the fact that there are trout in the same streams that never descend to the sea, and there is a marked difference in color between them and their brethren, although I believe they are the same fish. For the correctness of these views, reference can be made to the experience of many authorities that would be satisfactory to one that I esteem and respect as much as I do my excellent friend and brother of the angle, Mr. Perley. While mentioning his name, it will not be amiss to tender him, in the name of the fishermen of the United States, our thanks and grateful acknowledgments for the invariable kindness, courtesy and good humor with which he has answered the numerous questions entailed upon him by his mention in Frank Forrester’s “Fish and Fishing,” and the valuable aid and advice he has furnished the wanderers from the States in their search for piscatorial happiness. Combining as he does the heartiness of an Englishman with the sociability of our own country, we are proud to claim him, while he remains in our vicinity, as half an American. But let me, at the same time, suggest to my countrymen, that there is a limit even to the best of tempers, and that, although each one may only put a few questions and take up a little valuable time, the total combined may be annoying, inconvenient, and even excessively burdensome.[4]

In addition to the positive fact of taking sea trout above tide water, it is to be remarked as a habit of all trout to ascend in summer to the cool sources of the springy brooks, and our common trout will invariably be found, after the warm weather is at its height, either in the rivulets that feed the ponds where they dwell in winter, or at the head-waters of the ponds. The sun’s rays are so powerful that they affect any sheet of open water, especially the harbors and bays of the ocean, and the fish will not live there, but withdraw to cooler regions. A remarkable case of this kind fell under the writer’s observation at Masapequa Pond, which is universally admitted to be the best preserve on Long Island. It is rather small, and quite shallow except in the channel, and being entirely unsheltered, is liable to become heated in hot weather. The spring had been remarkably mild, and in the middle of May, after a number of days that reminded one of June, I visited Masapequa, and, although the weather was favorable and a lively ripple darkened the water, only two trout were killed in the entire morning. I was much discouraged and surprised, until happening to get my flies caught, I put my hand into the water and found it milk-warm. The explanation was simple, and I at once told the proprietor, who had been more astounded than myself, that the fish had run out of the pond into the brook; and there, sure enough, we shortly discovered them lying in the deep pools in shoals.

If they cannot retire to cool, fresh, aërated water, they will perish, as happened one dry, warm season in a pond at Oyster Bay, which, although well filled with trout, had no extensive head-waters. The fish crowded round the flume, hardly disturbed by being touched with a stick, remaining motionless, and evidently suffering. They died and were picked up by scores.

If sea trout do not ascend the fresh streams, where do they spawn? From the habits of all the salmon tribe, we know they must have a current of pure and cool water to vivify the eggs, and they certainly cannot find this along the shores and bays. Their eggs must be deposited on a gravelly bed and not on sand, and as the bottom of the salt water, which is purely sand, even if appropriate spawning ground, is peopled with all sorts, shapes and sizes of creeping, crawling and burrowing things, from sand-worms to sea-eggs, the spawn would be utterly destroyed long before it could come to maturity. If, in spite of all these difficulties, the eggs should hatch, the young fry being entirely helpless for thirty days, and little able to take care of themselves afterward, would be annihilated by their elder brethren or the first sea fish that came along. Young trout, in their appropriate localities, hide carefully in little spring rills and close along shore for months after they are hatched, and not till well grown and active do they trust themselves in the deeper places among the larger fish. Nature has taught them that the latter have an excessive fondness for them.

Whether sea trout spawn earlier than brook trout, I do not know, but very possibly they may, as in cooler countries fish usually spawn earlier than in warmer ones. However, in August the roe is not developed to any great extent; no more so, apparently, than with us, and, although the Canadian Winter sets in earlier than ours, trout do not fear the cold. The regions they inhabit being extremely difficult of access in the freezing season, this question may remain some time unsolved.

Whether sea trout should be ranked as a distinct species, or whether there are any different species of trout in America, has been a serious question. It is a great misfortune that every naturalist, in his eager endeavor to discover new species and originate new names, has caught at the slightest distinctions in appearance, which are often only due to food or water, and has immediately dubbed the fish a knight and endowed him with a new name--frequently some horrible Latin perversion of his own. Real distinctions are those permanent ones that no change of food and water can affect, nor the chance influence of a few shell-fish or a muddy bottom. There are distinctions between these trout and brook trout, of color, comparative size of different parts of the body, formation of the head and fins; but not more so than one often meets with in fishing any of the streams of Long Island that communicate with the sea, or even in the different streams of the wild woods. The sea trout of Canada certainly do far excel the ordinary trout in size, being taken, with the fly, weighing nine pounds, and the ordinary average being from three to four; but otherwise they seem to have no permanent peculiarity that should distinguish them from the common brook trout. All other distinctions fade after the trout have been for some time in fresh water, and a late run of sea trout differs far more from those which have ascended the streams a month earlier than the latter from the brook trout. Indeed, some sea trout have become domesticated in the fresh water, and never returning to the sea, have settled down, although often of great size, into the ordinary trout.

In Stump Pond, on Long Island, and the adjacent waters, are four different varieties of trout: the old-fashioned Stump Pond Trout,[5] with a black mouth, a long, thin body, a big head, and a wolfish, hungry look; the Salt Water Trout, with a small, sleepy head, a deep body, and a rich coloring, small fins and red flesh; the Brook Trout, long, narrow, brightly marked, gracefully shaped and lively; and a trout which has appeared in a new pond, scarcely yet completed, with a dark, strong coloring, very black on the back, a thick, stout body, and a well proportioned head. Any one can distinguish these fish at a glance, but must they each have a different name, and a Latin one at that?

The fresh run sea trout of the North have beautiful silver sides, almost as bright as a salmon’s, and in this particular, at least, differ from the salt water loving trout of Long Island and Cape Cod. Their heads are small, delicate, and exquisitely shaped, and their lower fins are small and almost transparent. The heads of the males are larger, and the lower jaw more hooked than those of the female, and these differences increase as the spawning season advances. The head of the female bears a comparison to that of a modest, refined lady, while that of the male resembles the big head and ugly jaw of the struggling, quarrelling, but protecting man. At times their flesh is a bright red, often a dull yellow and rarely whitish. The shape of their bodies is graceful and broad across the back, to a greater degree in both particulars than the sea run trout of Long Island and Massachusetts. But as they ascend the rivers, and after they have been some time in their new abode, these peculiarities diminish, the color of their backs turns from a beautiful green to a dull black, the splendor of their silvery sides fades, and the heavy spots and roseate tinge appear; their translucent fins grow opaque and strong from greater use in the swift current; their shape even seems to alter, and they are altogether unlovely by comparison with their former selves. Are they, therefore, “like Cerberus, three gentlemen at once,” and entitled to three distinct appellations, or are they simply our dearly loved old friends, the _Speckled Trout_?

The change in appearance of these fish cannot be explained by the suggestion that the ordinary brook trout ascend the rivers and mingle with those of the sea, because the latter are to be caught in every stage, from the brilliancy of the fresh river fish to the dull colors of the oldest inhabitant. And it will be noticed that at the heads of the rivers a bright-colored fish is rarely met with, although they must be, with few exceptions, all sea trout.

The best trout rivers of Canada are troublesome to reach, difficult to ascend, and seldom attempted by any but the salmon fisher. To the latter, the trout, attractive as he seems to us, is a trial and a nuisance. Abundant and voracious, he often rushes in advance of the lordly salmon, seizes the fly, and then discovering his mistake, by his struggles disturbs the pool, ruffles the fisherman’s temper, and frightens the larger game from its equanimity. He is therefore little noticed by the frequenters of the headwaters, except to be denounced, and his delicate peculiarities seldom considered and less esteemed. He is principally sought in the tide water along the shores, or from boats in the open bays, but rarely followed to his summer home. The statements, therefore, of Canadian fishermen with regard to him must be cautiously received and carefully weighed; their experience may not have been sufficiently extended.

Whatever be his name, he is a beauty, the fairest of the children of the sea. There are others of more variegated colors, of gaudier hues, of more slender shape, but the trout is lord of all. He is the pet of the true fisherman, whether taken by the name of _Salmo trutta_ in the bays of Canada, weighing over ten pounds, or as _Salmo fontinalis_, in the mountain streams of Vermont, reaching not one quarter as many ounces. In Canada, sportsmen--and none others seem to fish--take the sea trout solely with the fly. In June, and earlier, they are found in the tide waters, and there prefer gaudy flies. The scarlet ibis, or curry-curry of South America, dressed as it is ordinarily done, or diversified by a little gold or silver tinsel wound round the body, or indeed the entire hook wound with tinsel alone, is by many preferred to all other flies; but the red hackle, the golden pheasant, the professor, the grey drake, and in fact any gay fly, will meet with approval. A much admired fly is made of a red body and yellow wings; but the more sober colors must not be forgotten nor neglected, they are often more successful than their gaudy relations. As the season advances, and the fish ascend the clear, cool rivers, especially if the water be low and the weather dry, the sober flies are preferable. Then the cow-dung, the alder-fly, the turkey-brown, the winged black hackle, and in fact all the ordinary flies, are in demand; a fly invented by myself, of a blackbird’s wing and a claret body and legs, and called the early fly, has often proved itself uncommonly killing; and indeed all the flies usually employed in other waters are appropriate for the sea trout in Canada.

Neither does the size of hook differ from that ordinarily in use; it should average about a number nine, with a few somewhat larger for rough water. It is rarely desirable, on account of the enormous size of the fish, to use more than one fly at a time, and generally the trout will soon remove the difficulty by reducing them to that number; but at times, when fish are shy, they seem to be attracted by seeing several. In order to kill the largest possible quantity, without any regard to humanity or sportsmanship, a heavy fly-rod is desirable, as much time is lost in landing them with a delicate rod.

For many hundred miles below Quebec, the majestic St. Lawrence rolls its transparent waters in a steady surge toward the ocean. Forward and backward heaves the mighty tide, piling up the waters eighteen and twenty feet; but the steady current keeps on its course toward the gulf. Into this wonderful stream, that can only be likened to an arm of the sea, at every few miles debouches from the granite hills a river, more or less extensive and more or less rocky and turbulent. These rivers rise on the mountain tops, cold and clear, and thunder down over falls and rapids, through chasms and gorges split in the eternal rock, till they leap, tumble or crawl into that outlet of a thousand lakes, the highway of the Canadas.

These streams the salmon and trout ascend, there to disport themselves, there to make love, prepare their nests, and perpetuate their species. The water is cool, running from the frigid regions of the north or supplied by icy springs, and the bottom offers every variety of spawning beds. There is the stony pool for the salmon, the pebbly one for the trout, and never do the two spawn, and rarely even live, in the same. The pool where the salmon lie is deep and rapid, with a bottom composed of dark limestones averaging about the size of a bantam’s egg. While the trout hide in a sluggish pool, and often one worn away by the water and hollowed from a clay bank. It is a tradition, but one by no means well substantiated, that trout never eat young salmon, nor salmon young trout. As trout are more fond of their own species than almost any other delicacy, it is not probable they would be fastidious about swallowing a nice, juicy little salmon.

The country through which these streams run is very peculiar: rough hills of granite rise almost perpendicularly from the edge of the water, many hundred and sometimes many thousand feet. Their sides are bare and bleak, and if adorned at all with verdure, it is with a stunted pine and spruce, that only half hides the white rock beneath. The streams wind in tortuous course among the crags, and slowly gain a high elevation. These bare, unprofitable hills extend back from the north shore of the St. Lawrence as far as the foot of man has penetrated, and only at long intervals by the shore of some of the larger rivers, where forty centuries of storms have worn away and washed the detritus from the mountain into some little bay, have half civilized beings been enabled to build rough cabins and glean a scanty subsistence. Thus are these waters, the home and nursery of the trout and salmon, protected forever by nature against the pervading destructiveness of man. Judicious laws have been passed and will be enforced by the Canadian government, and the American fisherman may find in neighboring waters what he will never again see in his own, these noble fish dwelling in abundance, and protected from worthless, wanton and unreasonable destruction.

It is a burning shame, a foul blot on the character of Americans, and tarnish on their reputation for far-sighted economy, that their only idea of the treatment of the wild game of the woods and waters seems to be total annihilation. “After me a desert,” is their motto; and they never rest till, by planting snares and liming streams, they have caught the last partridge and poisoned the last fish. Thus have they already destroyed one of the most valuable resources of the country; the Hudson, the Connecticut, the Penobscot, and even the Kennebec, yield no more salmon, and we yearly pay to Canada enormous sums for what we once had, and might still have, in plenty on our own shores. Not many years ago a person buying shad on the Connecticut River was required to take such a proportion of salmon. Now that the head-waters are covered with tanneries and saw-mills, and are crossed by dams without the simple expedient of a flume that the fish could ascend, and now that early salmon are worth a dollar a pound in New York market, where are the former denizens of the Connecticut?

All the timber cut on the streams would not pay for the damage done to the fisheries. In Canada the people have discovered, fortunately for them not too late, the importance of stringent protective laws. The nets can only be set within a certain distance, and cannot extend across the entire stream. In Lower Canada the net fishing terminates on the first day of August, and the rod fishing on the fifteenth of September, and spearing, the most cruel, unprofitable and injurious mode of destruction, is forbidden altogether.

About one hundred and twenty miles below Quebec the wondrous Saguenay pours its dark waters and fierce current into the placid bosom of the St. Lawrence. It is one of the natural wonders of our still new and scarcely explored country. Hills rise a thousand feet sheer up, and its waters descend a thousand feet deep at their base. The St. Lawrence, at its mouth, is only some thirty feet deep, but the bottom suddenly descends at the entrance to the Saguenay, and becomes from five hundred to a thousand feet in depth. The breadth of the Saguenay is so great that the grandeur of the mountains is lost to the eye, and the scenery is remarkable more for ruggedness than beauty. At the mouth of this river was the first station of the Hudson Bay Company, a little village called Tadousac, which is pronounced with the emphasis on the last syllable, and in that village stands the mission church of the Jesuits, the oldest in the country.

Close to Tadousac, and almost adjoining at the back, is a still smaller village called L’Anse à l’Eau, and although great ships no longer lie at Tadousac, and the houses are fast falling to decay, and the good men of the olden days have long gone their last journey, and the trappers are never more seen around the famous station, and the glory of the Hudson Bay Company has departed, the trout and salmon coast along the rocks and visit the inlets as they did when priests promenaded the natural terraces of Tadousac, and when the shortest road to the Northwest was up the Saguenay River. The trout care not though the iron horse has sprung two great leaps across the water that they live in, and know not that a woman, the only Catholic that can read, officiates as high priest in the sanctum of the woman-haters, the mission church of the Jesuits.

The St. Lawrence abounds with most delicious food for trout; there are acres of small fish; the sand eels crowd the bays yards deep, the sardines, the mullet, the capelin, the tommy cods, push and jostle their way along, while shellfish innumerable cover the sandy bottom. Flies swarm on the water, and the deep rivers in Winter and the cool streams in Summer constitute the paradise of the _salmonidæ_.

Along the shores of the tide water, early in Spring the trout and salmon make their appearance, and wandering about pass the merry days of May, June and July in feasting and junketing, in visiting new scenes and tasting every variety of food, till instinct warns them the waters are falling, and they must hasten to their sylvan bowers and enjoy the pleasures of love and paternity. Then slowly, the largest first, they leave the tide waters and swarm up all the practicable streams, running the rapids and steadily advancing to their pebbly spawning beds, which kind nature appears to have prepared in the heart of these impassable mountains for their especial protection. Through all this season, June, July and August, the fishing is magnificent; they are in great numbers, and of immense size; but after they have once left the salt water, the angler must accompany them in their ascent if he would continue his sport, and by day struggle in his canoe against the rapids, up which he hears them darting at night.

While the fish are still in tide water, and the fisherman is fishing from the rocks, the head of some bay into which flows a stream of fresh water, and the time of the lower half of the tide, are both desirable. The former as furnishing a variety of food, and the latter as contracting the fishing ground. The eddies of a swift current, and the hollows of a rocky bottom are both affected by the fish; although they are often found along a smooth sandy shore, chasing the minnows, and now and then dashing at a fly or sand-hopper thrown off the land. It is nothing unusual to capture a hundred fish in as few hours as it will require to land them, and often the only limit to the number will be the sportsman’s humanity. They are a difficult fish to preserve; it seems sacrilegious to salt them; they are not good pickled in brine, and smoking is both injurious and troublesome. The fisherman, if he would not have them rot before his eyes, must put a bridle on his eagerness.

They run very large, sometimes above a dozen pounds, are often taken of five and six, and frequently a whole day’s catch will average three pounds. They are found at the mouth and along the shore of every river that empties into the lower part of the St. Lawrence. They ascend the Saguenay, and are taken at and near its mouth in great numbers, and in fact everywhere in the lower St. Lawrence and all its tributaries they abound. It would be more difficult to tell where not to find them than where to find them. But the best trout-fishing season is later, when they have followed the salmon and retired to the upper waters of the mountain streams, where they lie together in shoals, in the deep pools. Then they may be traced by the wake their motion leaves in the water; then may the fisherman, casting a long line and careful fly, pick the finest and go on fishing till heart and soul are satisfied. There, amid the wild scenery, at the foot of the granite hills, by the shade of the stunted spruce, he may take his stand upon some point of rocks, near to a black pool, and deftly wielding the slender rod, may bring to the net one after another of the mighty denizens of the water. But even then, if he would take the mightiest he must prove himself a sportsman by keeping out of sight and casting far and straight. And when his sport is terminated by the declining day, or his ample satisfaction, and he meets his companions round the camp-fire, over a well cooked supper improved by a vigorous appetite, he will exchange experiences of the habits of fish or the arcana of the angler’s art.

If, however, he loves the “wet sheet and the flowing sea,” a nautical anomaly, by the way, he may pursue his prey in the open bays, and with a smart breeze and long line, and gaudy fly dancing from wave to wave, have great sport. Under these circumstances the fish are almost uncontrollable and must be often followed with the boat for a long way before they can be killed. It is gloriously exciting, the bright waters sparkling with foam, the light boat leaping over the billows, the sky magnificent in its depth of blue, the fresh breeze cool and strong; and the fish just hooked, furious, vigorous and courageous, rushing hither and thither, plunging to the bottom or springing high out of water. Then the exciting chase as he takes off fortunately down wind, and exhausts all but the few last turns of line on the reel till it becomes a question of speed between him and the boat, and at last his final surrender and capture. Truly is it magnificent.

Rivière du Loup, a little Canadian village situated on the St. Lawrence, opposite the mouth of the Saguenay, is now connected with Quebec by railroad, and is only a day and a half distant from New York. It affords good accommodations, but there is no place anywhere on the Saguenay or at its mouth where the traveller can stop.[6] The Habitans although generally willing to offer such accommodation as they possess, are too dirty in their habits, and often too much beloved of creeping things to suit American taste. So that as there is little or no trout fishing at Rivière du Loup, the angler must make his arrangements for a camp-life, and would do well to descend the St. Lawrence in a pilot boat, which he can hire with a man and boy for two dollars a day, and stop at the mouths of all the streams that debouche into it. The river is over twenty miles wide, and he must look out for storms, as these boats are open and by no means good sea boats. At night he can go ashore, build a fire, put up his tent, and call into requisition the numerous luxuries this mode of travelling will enable him to carry.

A steamboat ascends the Saguenay twice a week, and he can either take it at Quebec or join it at Rivière du Loup, and by this means enjoy a trip through the bold scenery of that celebrated river, and can either return to Rivière du Loup, or take a pilot boat at L’Anse à l’Eau. There is a generous-hearted Englishman living at L’Anse à l’Eau, but he has been compelled to refuse admission to all strangers, as any infraction of that rule would have led to his being overrun.

Many of the streams of Lower Canada are leased to private individuals, and there are few good accessible salmon streams open to the public, but the sea trout fishing along the St. Lawrence and at the mouths of most of the streams is free to all. In Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, and at Prince Edward’s Island, there is as yet no restriction, and both salmon and trout are the property of him who can catch them.[7] Nowhere, however, can any salmon fishing or good trout fishing be had except by camping out. Canadian canoemen can be obtained, if not required to furnish canoes, for sixty cents a day, although the Indians, who are far superior, command over a dollar, and where the angler is unacquainted with the water he is to fish, he had better take the latter. They are, however, willful and exacting, and sometimes stubborn and troublesome, while the former are the best-natured fellows in the world, full of fun, song and frolic, but often too fond of the liquor case.

The best river of Lower Canada is the Mingan, but if it is not already leased it soon will be. It can be reached by steamer that leaves Quebec semi-weekly, stopping at Gaspi, at Bathurst on the Bay de Chaleurs, which is near Nipisiquit, the best river of New Brunswick, at several places along the route, and finally at Shediac, whence there is a communication with St. John or Halifax. The steamer running at the time this is written is the Arabian, and leaves Quebec every alternate Monday. The Nipisiquit is within a few miles of Bathurst, where there is good accommodation, and boatmen can be obtained without difficulty, or the fisherman may continue his travels to Dalhousie, at the mouth of the Restigouche, and try either that or the Matapediac. Another mode of reaching the fishing grounds, is to go to St. John, and thence by steamboat to Fredericton, and cross over by land to the Miramichi, at Boiestown, where there is excellent trout and fair salmon fishing. A list of the distances from Quebec, together with further instructions, is given under the head of salmon fishing, as the rivers we have mentioned are properly salmon rivers.

The sea trout fishing is so fine, that many persons prefer it to taking the larger salmon, and can be indulged in almost anywhere along the shores of New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward’s Island, Newfoundland and Lower Canada; and were it not for the heavy fogs, the Bay of St. Lawrence would be a favorite resort of our adventurous yachtsmen. The Galway line of ocean steamers now touches at Newfoundland, whose waters abound with the finest fish.

The sea trout ascend to the head-waters of the Miramichi quite early, so that there are none of large size to be caught in the lower section by the middle of July. In that river they average from two to five pounds’ weight. But the Tabasintac, a stream half-way between Chatham and Bathurst, is the most famous sea trout river of New Brunswick. I do not know of any sea trout along the southern shore of New Brunswick.

The scientific designation of this fish is not yet settled, although the United States Fish Commission have given it their attention, and it is to be dreaded that, numerous as he still is, the sea-trout will have disappeared before we know what to call him.

Canada and the Provinces have been immensely developed since much of the above was written; travel is easier, pleasanter, quicker, and accommodations better. But with this improvement have come fishing restrictions, license fees, and government interference, which more than counterbalance the advantages.