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HARVARD UNIVERSITY.

L I B R A Tt Y

MUSEUM OF COMPARATIVE ZOOLOGY.
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THE HABITS OF THE
SALMON

JOHN P. TRAHERNE.

LONDON— CHAPMAN a\d HALL,

LIMITED.
^"1889.

\_All rights frserved.']

I^J / 1890

LONDON :
PRINTED BY GILDERT AND RIVINGTON LIMITED,

ST. John's house, clerkenwell road.

INTRODUCTION.

Perhaps It is unnecessary for me to offer any elaborate,
excuse for coming forward with another book
about salmon. Of all the fish that fall victims to
our skill, salmon are the most interesting by reason
of their size, strength, and gameness, the difficulty
of their capture, and the romantic scenery of the
districts in which, during their periodical returns to
fresh water, we have to seek them. Nor, in view
of its gastronomic excellence, its rapid growth and
great fertility, will the economist cease to remind us
that the salmon is an important article of food, and
of great commercial value. Yet angler and economist
alike may fairly doubt whether our present salmon-
laws are " within measurable distance of" what they

A 2

iv INTRODUCTION.

could be and should be. Do these laws afford the
greatest possible scope, encouragement, and pro-
tection for the rapid propagation of the fish, and
secure a distribution of the harvest amongst all the
various proprietors according to their equitable in-
terests ? Are there not most important facts, as yet
without their due, or perhaps any, influence on the
statutes regulating the preservation and capture of
salmon, that point with certainty to a greater supply
of fish as the result of improved legislation ?

In calling attention to such questions as these,
and making my observations on them in the follow-
ing pages, I do so from a standpoint different from
that usually adopted by wTiters on the subject.
Much valuable information has been gained about
the salmon during his stay in fresh water ; but there
is still abundant room for contributions from the
practical side as well as from the scientific.

Questions relating to the natural history of the fish
have been, and are, constantly engaging the attention
of able men of science. To that class I do not pretend

INTRODUCTION. v

to belong. I am merely an angler of long and
varied experience ; and during my angling visits to
various rivers, I have had such opportunities of
studying the habits of salmon and of acquiring
valuable information on many of the topics relating
to them as few other fishermen have enjoyed.

I do not for a moment expect my readers to
agree with all the conclusions at which I have arrived.
On the contrary, it is my desire to provoke practical
and reasonable discussion upon many controverted
questions. If others who may have kept their eyes
open while they fished were to contribute their quota
to the present stock of knowledge, we might eventually
hope to arrive at some kind of unanimity, and a day
might come when upper proprietors, proprietors of
net-fisheries, and anglers, would shake hands and
meet in harmony to discuss new projects for their
own mutual benefit.

Pending the arrival of such a millennial happiness,
I venture to send out this little volume as a slight
contribution towards so desirable an end.

CONTENTS.

The Habits of the Salmon .
Spent Fish ....
Spawning Salmon, &c. .

Grilse

What are the Conditions of a good Grilse Year ?

Do Salmon feed in fresh Water ? . . .

The Effect of Temperature on the Habits of
Salmon, as regards their feeding

Parasites

Autumn and Winter Emigration of Smolts

What are unclean and unseasonable Salmon ?

Well-mended Kelts ......

Age and Growth of Salmon ....

Saprolegnia Ferax, commonly called Salmon Disease

I
67

72

87
95

lOI

104

113
117

125

137

142

Appendix A
Appendix B

161
162

THE HABITS OP THE SALMON.

No treatise on the art of breeding salmon or that of
improving sahiion-fishing, can be considered as
having a sound basis, unless it starts from, or has
direct reference to, the ascertained facts which
constitute the natural history of the fish. A know-
ledge of the habits of salmon, including the
emigration of smolts, their nature and food, must
come first in order as it does in importance. From
the scientist's point of view, to say nothing of the
angler's, the subject requires far more investigation
and study than it has ever received. We cannot tell
for certain whether the spring, summer, and autumn
fish are the same breed or not until we are more
enlightened than we are at present upon the regular
habits of the fish. No one can be absolutely sure
that spring fish, for example, obey an invariable law

2 THE HABITS OF THE SALMON.

in not putting off their journey to fresh water till
the autumn ; or, on the other hand, that it is in mere
caprice that some salmon will, and others will not,
leave the salt water at stated times in the year.
But whatever ultimately may prove to be the fact in
regard to identity of stock, we are quite justified
by convenience in retaining the broad classification,
unscientific though it be, which follows the four
seasons of the year ; and I consider that the ends of
January, May, August, and November may well be
taken as marking off the respective terms of winter,
spring, summer, and autumn fish.

But all rivers are not equally blest in the duration
of their supply. Some are more or less frequented
all the year round. Into others salmon do not run
until summer, and again there are rivers in which
not a single one is seen till the autumn sets in.
Speaking generally, and with due regard to local
conditions, they afford the best sport in spring and
summer, but towards the end of August they fall
off in this and other respects as their ova become

THE HABITS OF THE SALMON. 3

developed. For instance, in October their flesh is
flabby, gets h'ghter in colour, and is altogether
inferior in edible quality. From this time to the
end of the season they are best prepared for food
by being salted and smoked. There are, how-
ever, exceptions, since along with the gravid
autumn fish some are occasionally caught just as
good in condition and appearance as those which
leave the sea and run into fresh water early in the
year. It has happened to myself to catch clean
run fish under these circumstances, especially once
when fishing the Tay during the latter end of
September, 18S5. About that time a friend fishing
the water just above me, caught three, weighing
36 lbs., 36 lbs., 25 lbs. respectively. I saw them
not long after they were taken, and I assert that
no finer specimens of Salmo Salar were ever
exhibited in Grove's shop in Bond Street, at any
season of the year. Throughout the autumn and
winter months, as a general rule, not a few of these
fresh fish run into the Tay, off and on, just as thev

B 2

4 THE HABITS OF THE SALMON.

do into many other waters, and are often caught by
the nets when at work for the purpose of procuring
ova for scientific purposes.

Loch Tay is frequently stocked with clean
salmon in November. Without doubt these are
the fish we hear of as being caught somewhat dete-
riorated in condition when the following angling
season opens. It seems strange to call them
spring salmon, as they run up during the autumn
and winter months, yet on leaving the sea they are
similar to the early spring run fish both in shape
and colour.

I take it for granted that, in amending the
salmon fishery laws, the object of the Legislature
was, that salmon should increase in such numbers
as must sooner or later reduce the retail price.
It could only be then that this most valuable
article of nutritious food might be available,
when in season, for the poor man as well as for the
rich.

This object has partly been attained inasmuch

THE HABITS OF THE SALMON. 5

as salmon have been found in increased numbers in
rivers where they were exceedingly scarce before
the fishery laws were amended. Notwithstanding
this fact, the retail price unfortunately keeps pro-
hibitively high in the early part of the season, whilst
in the middle of the summer it seldom falls below
IS. 6d. per pound. The consequence is that poor
people do not taste salmon till near the end of the
season, when the fish are cheap, and in very poor
condition. In all probability the price will never
fall very much early in the year, as there are, com-
paratively speaking, so few rivers in the kingdom
that are then adequately stocked with fish. Conse-
quently the supply is a limited one, and is by no
means sufficient to meet the demands even of
those who can afford to pay the usual exorbitant
prices.

If it be true that spring, summer, and autumn
salmon are distinct breeds, it is evident that the
trouble and expense which have been incurred in the
artificial hatching of the ova of the late-running fish.

6 THE HABITS OF THE SALMON.

with the object of Increasing the number of spring or
summer fish, have been wasted and thrown away.
If, on the other hand, the different migrations are of
one and the same breed, or in other w^ords, if the
autumn and winter fish breed those which ascend
our rivers in the spring and summer months, it is
manifest that, although late-running salmon are infe-
rior in edible quality, they are as valuable as spring
or summer fish for breeding purposes ; therefore, by
affording them additional protection, we should
increase the numbers of the spring and summer
runs, and then a most valuable article of food would
soon be brought within the reach of the poor man in
summer, if not in spring.

The question arises, are spring, summer, autumn,
and winter salmon distinct breeds or not ? That
question, I maintain, is of very great importance,
not only to the poor man, but also to salmon-
fishermen • in general, as well as to the world at
large.

In a very interesting letter to the Field of
Nov. 29th, 1S85, headed "A Day's Spawning,"

THE HABITS OF THE SALMON. 7

Dr. Francis Day ^ states, "That early ascending
salmon cannot be those fish from which we have
to expect ova for replenishing the stock of our
rivers, and that these early fish cannot develop
eggs without another journey to the sea." With
all due respect to the opinion of such a high
authority, I am of opinion that early ascending
salmon are as often as not bred from ova of fish
which enter fresh water at any time of year, and
I shall be glad to know upon what evidence we
can arrive at any other conclusion. Even if it
were proved that a certain number of them re-visit
the sea before the spawning season, we know that
most early-ascending fish stay at home. Take, for
example, the River Tay, and what do we find ?
We find salmon making for Loch Tay all through
the autumn, winter, and spring months. In May
there is a generiil exodus of fish from the Loch
into the Dochart, a tributary flowing into Loch Tay
at Killin, and these remain in the Dochart until the

' Since these pages were written, we have had to lament the
death of this eminent ichthyologist.

8 THE HABITS OF THE SALMON:

spawning season is over, when they fall back into
the Loch as spent fish. Comparatively few salmon
enter Loch Tay after May, as they prefer the
warmer waters of the Lyon and other tributaries,
and it may be contended that the comparative
scarcity of fish in Loch Tay during the summer
months is accounted for by the fact of the early fish
having returned to sea. Now, if they had returned
to sea, where do the fish which spawn in the
Dochart come from } There vs, prima facie evidence
that early-ascending fish do not return to sea un-
spawned, as many clean fish are caught by rods in
Loch Tay during the spring months, bearing un-
mistakable signs of having run up during the
previous autumn and winter, and I maintain that the
majority of fish which spawn in the Dochart are
identical with the early run.

The River Helmsdale (Sutherlandshire) affords
some important evidence in relation to the spawning
of early-ascending salmon. Not many years ago,
netting began in that river on the nth of February,

TliJi II A BITS OF THE SALMON. 9

but the spring- take was comparatively insignificant
both for nets and rods.^ But of late years the
Duke of Sutherland (the proprietor) has prohibited
the nets from being worked until the ist of
May, and the result is, that the spring fish
have vastly increased in numbers. During the seven
years I fished the Helmsdale prior to the Duke's
intervention, the average take was not over 46 fish
per rod during the spring months ; the greatest
number caught by myself in any one spring being
82, whilst in another spring I got no more than 16.
Now, I am informed that the average number per
rod killed during spring for the last five years has
been no less than 125, and that as many as 200
have been killed in the spring by one fisherman.
A brief consideration of these facts, even without

■ The netting was not extensive, and, I was told, barely paid
expenses, a statement I had special facilities for testing by per-
sonal observation of the daily returns of fish netted. I was con-
vinced that the average spring netting would not exceed 200 fish,
but I have just received the most trustworthy local opinion that
the average could not have reached that figure for the years in
(Question.

lo THE HABITS OF THE SALMON.

further details must lead to the inference that the
increased numbers of the early running fish may
fairly be attributed to the fact of there having been
on the spawning beds an increased number of early
fish.

Assuming that the sole object of salmon in entering
fresh water and making for the upper reaches is to
reproduce their species, it is highly improbable that
they would so soon take what is often a long and
difficult passage, if they have to return to sea in order
to enable them to develop their eggs. Is it not more
probable that they are instinctively inclined to make
the long voyage when they are unencumbered with
spawn, and consequently in better condition for
travelling ^ Ova, although discernible in embryo,
are never found developed in early ascending
salmon ; but should this be accepted as evidence that
these fish are barren } I think not ; and, allowing
for those which have lost their way and gone
up a strange river, I cannot believe that salmon
are in the habit of dropping back to salt water
before spawning. To prove they do so, it would

THE HABITS OF THE SALMON. 1 1

be necessary to identify them in the tideways
and estuaries year after year, by catching and
marking them in considerable numbers ; but the
mere capture of one or two fish in that way would
not be sufficient to show that the general habit of
early ascending salmon is to return to the salt water
unspawned. Where there is such a large body of
water as flows in the Tay, it is not an uncommon
occurrence for the fish that have taken up their
quarters in shallow pools, or in places where they could
not live when the water is hiofh, to be carried down
stream in a flood to more suitable quarters below.
Not many years ago a big flood swept away a great
number of fish from the middle waters of the Tay to
the deep and comparatively still haunts below Delvine,
and several hundred of them were cauQ^ht at one
station in that localit\', and none below it, althouQ-h
the nets were at work all the way down to the tide-
way. Were it not for these circumstances the cap-
ture in question might be considered as showing that
the fish were on their downward journey to the
sea ; but that would be an incorrect view of the case.

12 THE HABITS OF THE SALMON.

Again, where the annual close time has been
altered so as to begin at an earlier date the numbers
of early ascending salmon have unquestionably in-
creased. A remarkable instance of this occurs in the
Blackwater — a river in the south of Ireland, cele-
brated for its early salmon. Prior to the year 1881
the annual close time there commenced on the ist of
September, and ended on the 14th of February ; how-
ever in 1 88 1 it was altered, so as to set in on the
1 6th of August, and end on the 31st of January. At
that time I rented a fishery below Fermoy, and well
remember how great was the consternation of many of
the rod fishermen at the change decided upon, all of
them being convinced that it would be exceedingly
injurious to their angling prospects in the spring. But
what a mistake they made ; for, after the alteration
took place, there were far more spring fish killed by
the rod for the next few seasons than there had been
for some years previously. This increase must surely
be attributed to the saving of the lives of hundreds
of spawning fish that would have been caught if the
nets had been allowed to fish up to the 31st of

THE HABITS OF THE SALMON. 13

August. I have, however, recently learnt that
salmon have become as scarce in the Blackvvater,
as in other mismanaged rivers of the United
Kinsfdom. It miMit be contended that in the Black-
water this is a natural consequence of working the
nets fifteen days earlier than usual, at the end of the
close season ; but, in my opinion, the falling off
is attributable to the dry summers of the last two or
three years, the drought in 1887 being almost un-
precedented. In fact there was little or no rain in
1 887 from the beginning of March to October. Very
few spent fish could have gone to sea that year, and
very few clean fish could have passed up from the
tideway, consequently the stock of breeding fish of
1887-8 was reduced to almost nil. The kelts of
1887 were the very fish which were looked to for a
supply of clean fish early in the following year, and
therefore it is not surprising that the spring fishing,
both for nets and rods, in 1888 was the worst we
can remember.

It has been stated on very good authority that the
result of artificial breeding in the Stormontfield ponds

14 THE HABITS OF THE SALMON.

has been productive of a great increase of spring fish
in the Tay, and if so, it is well to bear in mind that
the ova from which the fish in these ponds were
hatched, were taken exclusively from autumn salmon,
or rather from those caught in fresh water in the lower
parts of the streams in November. On comparing
notes, and consulting the table showing the date of
the commencement of the annual close season for
nets on various rivers of the United Kingdom, I
notice that early ascending salmon are far more
numerous in rivers that have an annual close time
commencing on or before the ist of September,
than in rivers where the close time commences
after that date. And although this increase may
be attributed to other causes, the fact still remains.

Again, very few salmon escape the nets in the
estuaries and tideways during the summer, though
some pass up during the weekly close time. Those,
however, which do make from the tideway are
generally captured by the upper nets, within, say,
twenty-four hours from the time of their arrival. It
follows, therefore, that the breeding stock of these

THE HABITS OF THE SALMON. 15

so-called summer salmon is often fatally reduced ;
but in spite of this, large numbers of fish are caught
in the estuaries year after year, in the very middle of
the season. From whence does this supply come ?
It surely cannot be supposed that these fish have been
bred from the limited number of summer salmon
which have so evaded the nets during previous
years! It must surely be, rather, that the majority of
them owe their existence to either spring, autumn
or winter fish.

Many persons assert that spring, summer, and
autumn salmon are distinct breeds, but I cannc t
agree with them, and if the foregoing facts are care-
fully considered, perhaps the reader may be rather
inclined to the presumption that these fish belong,
one and all, to the same stock. Many salmon-
anglers are aware, that the spring fish in all its
activity and beauty does not much resemble
the unshapely appearance of the comparatively
indolent autumn fish ; but surely they should not,
in the absence of all proof, declare it to belong
to a breed wholly distinct from either the summer or

1 6 THE HABITS OF THE SALMON.

the autumn stock. In the Blackwater (co. Cork)
and the Boyne, and other rivers I could mention, the
fish which show themselves during the month of
May have more the appearance of overgrown grilse
than adult salmon, and would almost give one the idea
that they had never been up the river to spawn.
Moreover they differ in many ways from the earlier
and later run, but if they were compared with each
other a still more marked difference would be dis-
cernible. . Some that come up during autumn are as
fresh-looking as spring or summer fish, but it should
not be forgotten that nine out of ten of the bright
ones are in a gravid state ; so I conclude, that their
bright appearance arises from their having developed
their ova out at sea, while the majority are roaming
about the estuary and getting unmistakably dis-
coloured in the brackish water.

The foregoing particulars, though very imperfectly
set forth, may give some idea of the cause of the
difference in appearance between the various runs of
salmon, but must not be taken to support the idea

THE HABITS OF THE SALMON. 17

that there is any difference whatever in the breed.
Let us for the moment consider the dissimilarity
between salmon in the parr, smolt, grilse, and adult
stages, bearing in mind that every member of the
Salmo Salar family undergoes certain transformations
at particular periods dating from its birth. Surely it
cannot be said that when a young salmon has grown
into an adult fish, it will afterwards undergo no further
change in appearance : and I would ask those who
have considered the matter, whether they can offer
any good reasons for the belief that the salmon which
run into fresh water in the spring, summer, and
autumn, respectively, of a given year, do so in
obedience to a persistent instinct, inherited by each
fish from its parents, as to the period of ascent from
salt water.

It is well known that salmon which have
reached the adult stage undergo certain changes
in appearance as they grow older ; a fact that
may account for some errors made in regard
to the question of breeds. With cattle we observe

c

1 8 THE HABITS OF THE SALMON.

that counties In the United Kingdom have their
own distinct breeds, differing widely from each
other in appearance. May we not assume that, in
like manner, each river has its own breed of sal-
mon, which, though assuming differences of ap-
pearance at various times of the year, yet belongs
to one and the same stock ? I think so. Some
information might be obtained by marking a number
of spring fish on making their appearance in fresh
water, and by continuing to watch their subsequent
movements, viz. their departure from, and reap-
pearance in, fresh water. It is my belief that a
winter or autumn fish of one year may run up on
the next occasion in the spring, and also that a
summer fish might make for fresh water in the
spring or autumn ; but on this point, I, like many
other anglers, have come to this conclusion merely
from observation of a character that can hardly be
said to amount to actual proof.

The good results which in places have been de-
rived from earlier closing would justify a similar

THE HABITS OF THE SALMON. 19

alteration in the close time being made on all rivers
frequented by early running salmon, at all events
where the annual close time commences after the ist
of September. The same results would probably
be attained in all cases, and therefore proprietors of
net fisheries would be amply compensated for any
loss sustained by their having to leave off fishing
earlier than usual. For there would certainly be
more gravid fish left to breed, and thus the stock
would be increased during the early part of the
season, when the fish are not only in their best con-
dition, but fetch the highest price.

The question, however, of the annual as well as
the weekly close time has, as long as I remember,
been a source of ill-feeling, causing endless disputes
between the upper proprietors of fisheries and those
above estuaries and tideways. In rivers having a
long course, where the nets are not used above
the tideway, the present law answers the purpose
for which it was intended, and the fish have a free
run to the upper waters during the weekly close

c 2

20 THE HABITS OF THE SALMON.

time. But in other rivers, where the nets are worked
above the tideway, it is a different affair altogether,
as most of the fish which have passed up from
the tideway during the weekly close time are
caught by these nets, consequently very few reach
the upper waters.

In such rivers there are three interests opposed
to each other ; there are the interests of the pro-
prietors of estuaries and tideways, of those above
the tideway as far as salmon travel during the
weekly close time, and of others of the upper waters
above those places. Of course the lowest proprietors
get the lion's share ; they catch fish day and night
for at least five days a week during the open
season, and in the summer months, when the water
is low, hardly a fish making its way to fresh water
passes their nets. The netsmen above the tide-
way are next best off, they begin fishing the very
minute the close time ends, and, with the excep-
tion of some few fish which happen to have taken
up their quarters in impregnable places where the

THE HABITS OF THE SALMON, 2 j

nets cannot be used, they catch every fish that
comes. But all that falls to the share of the upper
proprietors is a small proportion of the few fish
that may happen to have passed the lower stations
during the weekly close time, and those that reach
the district durino- the annual close season. Of
those that make headway in the weekly close
time, grilse, by their clever habit of evading
the nets, form by far the largest contingent. It
would, therefore, appear that the lower proprietors
of net fisheries, by virtue of the law as it at
present stands, are unjustly authorized to enjoy
far more than their share of the spoil, and it is
obvious that, unless some better provision is made
for the upper proprietors, all moneys expended for
the purpose of increasing the number of fish in
their waters would be misused and merely benefit
the lessees of the net fisheries.

Perhaps the result of some judicious alteration of
the law — let alone the facilities afforded by our
artificial hatcheries — would amend matters and

2 2 THE HABITS OF THE SALMON.

increase the numbers of salmon so as to benefit the
upper proprietors. Not that I, in anywise, think it
in the power of man to convert a late river into an
early one ; in other words, to induce the fish, by any
artificial means, to run into fresh water one day
earlier than has been their usual habit. It is
asserted that the River Usk has become an earlier
river than formerly, that salmon spawn earlier than
they did before they were well looked after, and that
there are more fish captured earlier in the spring in
consequence. Strict preservation in that river has
undoubtedly been the means of increasing the
number of both spawning fish as well as spring fish ;
but the question is, Do clean fish run up earlier in
the spring than they did ? Before it can be certain
that the Usk is an earlier river than it was, some
better proof is wanted to show that there is an
increased supply of fish in the months of February
and March. I am, however, informed by an old
angler, who has fished the Usk for the last twenty
years, that, although the fish are more numerous,

THE HABITS OT THE SALMON. 23

they do not run up one clay earlier than they used
to. There are other rivers in which strict preser-
vation has been carried on, and although we hear of
a large increase of stock in them, we do not hear of
any single stream having become earlier by the extra
trouble and expense.

I have occasionally seen the upper waters of
various districts well stocked with early salmon long
before the usual time, but only when the weather
had been remarkably mild ; their earlier appearance
was owing purely to natural causes, and to nothing
else. These fish had not really changed their
habit. In fact, the early ones are seldom if ever
found in shallow rivers, but generally in rivers of a
long course which hold deep pools, or in those
which are fed by big lakes. The fish take up their
quarters in easy running water at the tails of pools
or in slack water edging the streams, as well as in
long, deep, and still running reaches, but never in
rapid currents until the spring is well advanced. A
big lake has a great attraction for them, and if they

24 THE HABITS OF THE SALMON.

find no obstructions as they press onwards, and the
weather and water are favourable, they travel straight
away for the lake without halting longer than is
necessary to rest. The progress they make entirely
depends upon the temperature of the water, which
during the early spring months is generally lower
than at any other time of the year. It is for this
reason that, although the height and colour of the
water suits them in spring, salmon are apt to tarry
in the lower pools and delay their journey until the
water gets warmer.

The following facts, the truth of which I can
vouch for, may be interesting, as they show the
effect the temperature has upon the progress salmon
make in their journey from the time they leave the
sea. The Thurso and Naver, to give an example,
discharge their waters into the sea on the extreme
north coast of Scotland, and are about thirty miles
distant from one another. The part of the Thurso
frequented by early ascending salmon flows out of
Loch More, which is a small loch at its head and a

THE HABITS OF THE SALMON. 25

mile and a half in circumference. There is a course
of about twenty miles between the loch and the
tidew^ay. There is also a course of about sixteen
miles between Loch Naver and the tideway. We
know that in both of these rivers salmon are found
in the month of January and sometimes even earlier.
Some years ago there were cruives in the Thurso,
but for some time past they have not been used,
and now there are no such engines in either river.
But the habits of the salmon that frequent them
differ considerably. For instance, they run into
Loch Naver as early as January and February, but
not one single fish goes into Loch More until quite
the end of March or beginning of April. It is well
known that in winter and early spring the tem-
perature of water in big, deep lakes, and rivers which
are fed by them, is much warmer than the waters
of small shallow lakes ; and again, the temperature
of water in deep large lakes is lower than that of the
sun-heated rivers during the summer months. This

o

accounts for the fact that salmon run earlier into

26 THE HABITS OF THE SALMON.

Loch Naver, which is a big, deep lake, than into
Loch More, which is very small and no more than
twelve feet deep in any part, and in which, on
account of its shallowness, the water in early spring
is several degrees colder than that of Loch Naver.

The Helmsdale and Brora discharge themselves
into the Moray Firth on the south coast of Suther-
landshire, and, although somewhat later than the
Thurso or Naver, are both spring rivers ; in both
also there exist obstructions, which, as a rule, pre-
vent salmon from attempting to get over the falls,
before a certain time — that is, the third week in April
and the first in May respectively.

In my experience of several years on the Helmsdale
I never found salmon above the falls before the 20th
of April but once. In that year the weather in spring
was unusually mild, and there had been a succession
of heavy floods for some weeks previously. That
occasion, however, was exceptional ; for a close ob-
server says that the habit of the Helmsdale fish has
not changed. The Helmsdale flows out of Baden

THE HABITS OF THE SALMON. 27

Loch — a big lake, one of a chain fourteen miles long —
and has a course of about twenty miles to the tideway.
The falls are situated about midw£iy. There are no
big lakes above the falls of the Brora, Loch Brora
being some distance below. In spring salmon run
up the lower Brora into Loch Brora, then up the
river above the loch as far as the falls, but they never
try to pass up them until about the 2nd of May,
or a fortnight later than they do on the Helmsdale.
I account for the difference in the habits of these fish
by the fact that there is more snow-water running
in the Brora than in the Helmsdale ; also by the
fact that, as there are no big lakes above the falls in
the Brora, the temperature of the water there is lower
than it is in the river above the falls in the Helmsdale,
whose waters are warmed by the thermal supply
flowing from the chain of big lakes at the head of
the river.

What do we find in the Shin and the Oykel, both
of which rivers empty themselves into the Kyle
of Sutherland ? Apart from my own ideas I have

28 THE HABITS OF THE SALMON.

gathered considerable information from reliable
sources. I refer chiefly to private communications
made to me by anglers who have fished the rivers for
years ; and to " The Angler's Guide to the North of
Scotland," by the late Mr. Andrew Young, of Inver-
ness-shire. Mr.Young's remarks on these rivers may
be absolutely depended upon ; moreover, his descrip-
tion of the Shin and Oykel is instructive and very
interesting. The work clearly shows the effect
of temperature on the habits of the early running
fish. With regard to the Shin, the author remarks ;
" From its short course between Loch Shin and the
tideway in the Kyle of Sutherland, its temperature is
several degrees higher in the winter than the waters
of the Oykel and Cassley, with which it mingles on
entering the Kyle, and the temperature is several
degrees lower in the summer than the waters of these
long, sun-heated, hill-collected rivers. All these
variations are ascertained by means of instruments
at different seasons of the year. But even without
them we see these rivers completely covered with ice

THE HABITS OF THE SALMON. 29

in the course of the winter, when often no ice is seen
on the Shin. These changes have their due effect on
the sahnon entering the river at different seasons,
for their acute sensitiveness soon leads them to the
warm side of the estuary and the river from which
the warm water flows. It is well known that salmon
during the winter and spring months, when the water
of the warmest river is always cold, run on the sunny
side of the estuary, that is, as much as possible on the
north side, for, from the low course of the sun at that
season, the sunbeams reflect strongest on the north
side, and there during that time the run of fish is to
be found. In the summer months, that is after the
ist of May, the fish run on quite the opposite side of
the estuary, the high temperature of the water at that
time inducing them to seek, and as much as possible
to get under, the cool shade of the south banks, where
there is the least influence of the sunbeams. In large
rivers and estuaries it has always been found that
netting has been most successful on the north side
during spring and winter, and on the south side

30 THE HABITS OF THE SALMON.

during the summer. There are many good fishing
stations on all such rivers and estuaries, where no fish
can be caught earlier than the ist of May, while just
opposite such stations, the north side, makes a
successfijl spring fishing. It may be asked here,
when so many salmon rivers run into the tideway of
this Kyle, What is the reason that the Shin is the only
river that produces early salmon ? The reason is that
which has been explained before, ' The high tem-
perature of the Shin in winter.' That is the season
in which the ova are embedded in the gravel in the
river, and the hatching of the young fish is more
hastened here than in other rivers of a very low
temperature. The same cause affects the fish in the
same proportion in all their upward stages, and as all
these rivers have their peculiar race of fish, which
return to the river in which they have been bred, it
entirely accounts for the Shin producing early salmon,
and the other rivers not. This river issues from
Loch Shin at Lairg, and its whole course, with its
windings, is only between six and seven miles long.

THE HABITS OF THE SALMON. 31

The river may be said to be in two sections divided
by a large fall, over which the fish can ascend with
considerable difficulty, but not in all sizes of the
water. The only sure and safe chance in getting over
is when the river is in a middling size, neither too
high nor too low. The principal angling during the
spring months is from the big fall, as this is called ;
for the reason that, about a mile farther down, the
river runs over a low ledge of rock, known by the
name of the little fall, which from appearance should
be no obstruction to the fish at any season ; but it
is remarkable that they never go higher up the river
than the little fall earlier than April, and whatever
size the water may be, salmon never attempt to go
over the big fall earlier than the middle of May, and
very often not before the beginning of June."

We find, therefore, that on the Shin, Oykel, and
Cassley, the temperature has exactly the same effect
on salmon moving upwards as it has in other rivers
I have already mentioned. On the Cassley and
Oykel, which are not fed by big lakes, the fish are

32 THE HABITS OF THE SALMON.

seldom to be found until April, by which time the

water becomes much warmer.

The temperature of the water in the Shin — a river
flowing from a very large lake — is probably as high as
or even higher than that of either the Helmsdale or
Brora. It may, therefore, be asked, How is it that
salmon do not attempt to pass over the fall in the
Shin until a later date than they do in the other two
rivers ? The answer is this : the fall presents far
more opposition to the passage of the fish than the
falls of the Helmsdale and Brora, so much so
that it would appear that in a dry season, such
as that of 1887, ^^h could not pass over the big
fall in the Shin until after the back end of the open
season.

In the Aberdeenshire Dee, which is a first-class
early river, the same effect is produced by the
temperature of the water on the movements of salmon
as in other rivers. Should it be cold in the winter
or spring, and plenty of snow have fallen, the fish
tarry in the lower pools ; but after a mild winter

THE HABITS OF THE SALMON. :^i

they make for the Ballater district, and are often
found as high up as Braemar on the opening day of
the rod fishing. I may, however, mention that there
are no obstructions in the Dee.

Now take the Tay, into which clean fish run
all through the year, more or fewer, according to the
results of the netting operations in the tideway.
When the netting season terminates all these fish
move upwards, and have a free passage all the
way to Loch Tay, into which they continue to run
so long as the weather is favourable. But directly
frost and snow set in, all those which have left the
tideway remain in the lower pools until the weather
becomes milder. In winter and early spring the
temperature of the water in this Loch is several
degrees warmer than it is in the Lyon which joins the
Tay a little below Taymouth Castle, whilst the water
in the Ly'>n is warmer than it is in the Loch durinsf
the sumii r months. For this reason, salmon do not
patroniz the Lyon nor other tributaries in winter
and early spring, but run into Loch Tay. When

D

34 THE HABITS OF THE SALMON.

the winter is very mild, and is not accompanied
by snow — a state of things which, however, rarely
happens — the early fish frequent the Lyon and are
more numerous there than in the Loch. This is
because the water in the Lyon is the warmer of the
two. Indeed, it is well known that comparatively few
salmon run into Loch Tay between May and autumn;
and I am informed by an authority, who has fished
the waters of the Tay for thirty seasons, and who for
some years was the Marquis of Breadalbane's fisher-
man, that during his experience he neither caught nor
heard of the capture of more than one grilse kelt in
the Loch itself. Grilse as well as salmon avoid
the colder water of the Loch all through the summer
months, and take up their quarters in the Lyon. They
sometimes congregate previously above the outlet
near where the Lyon runs out of the Loch, but
they seem to go no higher ; and supposing my infor-
mation to be correct, it seems that even the salmon
which have previously run into the Loch, leave it
after May for the warmer waters of the Dochart,

THE HABITS OF THE SALMON. 35

and remain there until the spawning season is
over.

I have endeavoured, so far, to describe the habits of
early running salmon which frequent a few of the
cold Northern rivers, and in my opinion the arguments
in regard to their habits hold ofood on other rivers all
over the kingdom. The early fish are similarly
affected by temperature in our southern rivers, where
the progress they make upstream is slow during
intense cold. In fact, under such circumstances,
they never travel to the upper waters until the
spring is well advanced and the warm weather has
set in.

In regard to Irish waters, the whole business
appears to be a different matter altogether, but it is
not so in reality. The climate of Ireland during the
winter and early spring is much warmer than it is in
England or Scotland, in fact it is often summer weather
in the extreme south long before vegetation is affected
by the sun in the North of Scotland. On that account
the temperature of the water is of course warmer in

D 2

36 THE HABITS OF THE SALMON.

Ireland at the time, and has its due effect on the
upward progress of spring fish.

Let us take a few instances. The Lee (Co. Cork) —
in which, amongst other obstructions, there is one
of vital importance — is a noted river for early fish, but
it requires a high flood to enable them to pass over
that most formidable obstacle, known as the Pipe
weir, which is situated near the tideway. If, how-
ever, there is water enough, the whole river from
Cork to Macroom, some thirty miles in extent, is
usually stocked with spring salmon by the ist
of February, that being the opening day of the rod
season.

The Blackwater runs through the counties of
Cork and Waterford, and is really a first-class spring
river. Although the uninitiated may imagine that an
obstruction is formed by the fishing weir at Lismore,
it is not so, for there is a " Queen's gap," through
which every fish that escapes the nets can freely
pass. There is a weekly close time of forty-eight
hours on this river, and so the pools are gene-

THE HABITS OF THE SALMON. 37

rally well stocked with clean fish early in the year.
Again, there is the Mill weir at Clondulane, which
is about twelve miles distant from the tideway,
and also the famous w^eir at Fermoy, some four
miles beyond it, both of which are obstructions of
a formidable character ; still I have seen hundreds
of salmon early in the year pass over the fall at
Fermoy, which must have reached there by first
getting over the weir at Clondulane. Many of these
fish find their way to the upper waters, even
as high as Mallow — a town at least thirty-six
miles from the tideway at Lismore. There are
salmon ladders erected on both weirs, but the fish
never appear to make use of them. In the year
18S2 far more spring fish were killed in the upper
than the lower waters, except at Careysville ; but
the winter and early spring had been exceptionally
mild, and that accounted for the upper waters being
stocked in such unusual numbers so early in the sea-
son. Taking an average, however, although a fair
number of fish are found in the upper waters very

38 THE HABITS OF THE SALMON.

early in the spring, these particular districts are
never well stocked until April.

The Boyne (Co. Meath) is also a celebrated
early river, and notwithstanding ten mill weirs situ-
ated between Navan and the tideway, spring salmon
are always caught by anglers as high up as that
town on the ist of February, which is the opening
day for the rods. Some few fish run up the Boyne
above this point, whilst the majority make for the
Blackwater — a large tributary of the Boyne, running
in just below the town. A short distance above the
junction of the Blackwater, and we come to another
weir. It is in the stream below this weir that the
first salmon of the season is generally caught. I was
once at a loss to say why salmon always went
into the Blackwater earlier than into the Boyne
above Navan ; but later on I found that the
Blackwater is fed by a large lake, and that the
Boyne has none at all. I am now enabled to state,
through the kindness of a friend, what the exact
temperature of the water was in these two rivers

THE HABITS OF THE SALMON. 39

during the month of January, 18S7. The test was
made in both cases just above where the waters
meet at Navan. Here is the result.

Bov

NE.

January 14

17
21

24
26

36 deg

rees.

35

1

36

37

36

37

37

37

1887.

Blackwater.
January 14 ... 37 degrees.

„ 17

„ 21

„ 24

26

29

„ 31
February 2

35
39
40

39
41

42
42

February 2

It will be seen from the above statistics that
the temperature of the water in the Blackwater
averaged three degrees higher in January than that
in the Boyne. And so I can satisfactorily explain
why salmon appear in the former river earlier than
they do in the Boyne above Navan.

Independently of other instances to which I could
well refer, we have already three rivers in Ireland
through which the earliest spring salmon directly
travel for the upper waters in spite of all obstruc-
tions. But this is not surprising, although with

40 THE HABITS OF THE SALMON.

similar obstructions not one would find its way
to the upper waters of most rivers in the north of
Scotland until much later on. I am convinced
that there can be but one reason for this, and none
other, namely, that the climate of Ireland by being
much warmer than that of Scotland, the tempera-
ture of the water is higher. But the rule as
to temperature in that country does not apply
everywhere exactly alike ; for instance, if we take
the Erne and the Bann, we find that the habits of
the fish are altogether different. The Erne is fed
by two large lakes, the upper and lower Lough
Erne, whilst the Bann is fed by the largest lake
in Ireland, Lough Neagh, and yet few if any fish
find their way into Lough Erne before May, or
into the Bann before autumn. With all that, they
run through the Bundrowse river early in spring into
Lough Melvin, which is only a short distance south
of Ballyshannon, as they do into the Bush — an in-
significant river, not fed by any lake at all,
about the same distance from Coleraine. How do

THE HABITS OF THE SALMON. 41

we account for this ? By the simple fact that the
fall at Ballyshannon is a far more formidable ob-
struction than the others to which I have referred.
Salmon will not face the Ballyshannon fall, when
the temperature of the water is low, even in that
mild climate, and this is invariably the case during
the early spring months. It would be interesting
to know why the Bann, with its capabilities of
holding early salmon, and having no formidable
obstructions, is such a late river ; whilst the Bush,
a little river hard by, with no lake, is well stocked
early in the year. This may be accounted for by
the presence of cold springs in Lough Neagh,
which of course lower the temperature of the water
in the river so much as to prevent salmon entering
it early in the season. The same cause and effect
may possibly be the case with the Erne. I re-
member, some years ago, when I had shooting on
the banks of Lough Erne, with its islands which
were the favourite resort of woodcocks, that on
one occasion the Lough was frozen over, and that

42 THE HABITS OF THE SALMON.

the whole of my friends were able to cross the ice
to the islands for some days, without risk. It is
very seldom that large lakes are frozen over in
Ireland, and, if I remember rightly, Lough Erne was,
on the occasion referred to, an exception. This is
perhaps worthy of note, and not out of place here.
It reminds me that salmon never run into Loch
Earn (Perthshire), out of which the Earn, a cele-
brated salmon river, flows, and discharges its waters
into the tideway of the Tay some miles below
Perth. They run up the Earn as far as the loch
in great numbers during the autumn, but no far-
ther. This may be accounted for by the fact that
there are no spawning grounds above the loch ; but
a lake has such attractions for salmon, that people
may wonder why they do not take up their quarters
there for the time being, even if they had to fall
back to the river to reach their spawning grounds.
But I am inclined to the belief that the coldness of
the loch accounts for their absence in it ; knowing
that they have an objection to the cold springs

THE HABITS OF THE SALMOy. 43

(perhaps mineral), from which the main supply of
the water in the loch is derived. It is not easy
to account for this in any other way.

If the respective temperatures of the Bush,
Bann, Erne, and Bundrowse riv^ers were taken on
a cold day- in spring, and we found that the water
in the Bush and Bundrowse rivers was warmer than
that in the Bann and the Erne, then we could
account for the two last-named being later rivers —
the Bann beino- the latest river in Ireland.

Even without that information, I think my state-
ments strongly support the assumption that the pre-
sence of early salmon and their movements in fresh
water is generally dependent upon the state of the
temperature. It is as much beyond the power of
man to alter temperature as to alter the character
of rivers, and therefore any attempt to convert a
late river into an early one, or to induce salmon to
run into fresh water earlier than is their usual habit
would, in my opinion, be an utter failure.

In his book on Salmon Problems, Mr. Willis

44 THE HABITS OF THE SALMON.

Bund says, "It is not the pace that salmon can
travel that we are concerned with, but the pace they
do travel." All salmon fishermen know the pace a
salmon can travel after it is hooked, and also that
this pace lasts only for a short time, but the usual
rate fish travel to their destination in fresh water
is, as many know, quite another matter. On
entering a river they generally travel up with the
tide, and, while in the tide-way, their speed depends
upon the rate at which the tide flows. After leaving
brackish water they make headway against stream
and accommodate their pace to circumstances. Of
course if salmon were to rush through a rapid
as fast as they could, exhaustion would soon set in.
Instinct teaches them this, and they slacken speed,
taking advantage of the shelter of rocks or boulders
on their way, as well as enjoying a long rest on
arriving at weirs or falls, so as to regain strength
before passing them. During the early spring
months when the temperature of the water is
generally very low, although the fish are able to
travel as fast as at any time of the year, they never

THE HABITS OF THE SALMON. 45

do so. Indeed, the progress they make upstream
at that tune of year is known to be very slow.
Later on, when the water gets warmer, they move
quicker, and in summer, when it is warnier still, they
travel faster than ever. In autumn they also
seem to move as fast as they can, but the pace is
not so great, because they are encumbered with
spawn, and in proportion as their burden becomes
developed, their pace becomes slower. By that
time the water has usually decreased in tempera-
ture, and that alone would have an effect in
retarding their progress. I calculate that early in
the spring the average pace salmon travel upstream
in rapid rivers is, at a rough guess, about one-
third of a mile an hour, one mile an hour in summer,
and a quarter of a mile an hour in autumn. In
rivers containing no rapids and no rough broken
water, in other words, rivers of a sluggish nature,
the rate of speed is proportionately greater ; but I
think the fastest average pace salmon travel in any
river is seldom, if ever, more than two miles an
hour.

46 THE HABITS OF THE SALMON.

The foregoing estimate is based, not only on per-
sonal observation, but also from information received
from anglers and others engaged by the water-side
on different rivers in the United Kingdom, and I do
not think that my calculations are far wrong. By
watching them at various points, and comparing
notes afterwards, the pace salmon travel might easily
be ascertained. It would be easy to discover the
exact hour they reach the first pool, when the
journey may be said to have commenced ; and with,
say, half a dozen watchers stationed at known dis-
tances along twenty miles of river, the most accurate
information would be forthcoming, and the rate
salmon travel could thus be ascertained to a nicety.
Travelling salmon generally show themselves at the
tails of pools directly they reach them, and at
all the most frequented of those places a look-out
might be kept. In summer, when salmon travel
fastest, and they begin their journey at the very
commencement of the weekly close time, some may
pass beyond the highest netting-stations, should all

THE HABITS OF THE SALMON. 47

conditions be favourable ; but even when they are
caught above those stations, the marketable price does
not compensate the casual netsmen for their labours.
Were it asked, "Why is it that we are so con-
cerned with the pace at which salmon travel?" the
answer would be, that it is necessary we should
have accurate information on this point, in order
that we may legislate accordingly, so as to give them
plenty of time to pass the highest netting station
during the weekly close time. Where nets are
not worked above the tideway, the present weekly
close time requires no alteration ; but where netting
is carried on in fresh water, it is almost impossible,
except now and then in summer, for the fish to
reach the upper waters. The upper proprietors who
breed the fish, have much to complain of, for they
catch only a certain number of worthless salmon when
the nets are taken off, their chances being generally
deferred to the end of the season. It is obvious
that these proprietors should have a chance of
getting a fair share of fish in good condition,

48 THE HABITS OF THE SALMON.

but so long as the law remains as it is, their
chance is poor indeed ! I have heard it stated that,
although salmon may be scarce on the upper spawn-
ing grounds, a great many run up after the annual
close season begins, and spawn in the lower waters.
Quite so. But there are often far too many fish
on the lower spawning grounds. For instance, if
we take the Tay, we have enough evidence to
show that the spawning grounds of the lower waters
of this river are frequently very much overcrowded,
and, be it said, the Tay is by no means different
in this respect from other rivers of a like character
It should be noted here that the annual close time
on the Tay is from the 20th of August to the 5th
of February, and the weekly close time from 6 o'clock
on Saturday evening to 6 o'clock on Monday morn-
ing. If some of the fish were taken from the lower
waters and conveyed to the upper, some advantage
might accrue, but besides being a very expensive busi-
ness, and so not likely to be set on foot, it is doubtful
whether any good would come of it. The question

THE HABITS OF THE SALMON. 49

then arises, cannot some arrangement be made be-
tween the upper and lower proprietors, which
would ensure the passage of an extra lot of fish
to the upper waters in the weekly close time ?
Mr. John Dickson, W.S. of Perth, who has been
connected with the salmon fisheries on the river
Tay for thirty-three years and more, has written
three interesting memoranda addressed to the pro-
prietors of the districts. Recent legislation on the
subject to which he refers, finds little favour in his
eyes, nor is Mr. Dickson sure that the old laws
which were not repealed for four centuries (from
1424 to 1828), were not the best of all. The
close season, for instance, was only 106 days, i.e.
August 26 to December 10. But Mr. Dickson
regards Home Drummond's Act of 1828 as being
disastrous. By this Act the extension of the fish-
ing season from August 26 (as it was fixed under
the earlier regime), to September 14, resulted, in his
opinion, in a greater destruction of old autumn fish,
and so diminished the supply of the best breeding

E

50 THE HABITS OF THE SALMON.

fish in consequence, and he felt sure there were
other disadvantages attending the prolongation of
the close season to February i.

The Tay Act of 1858 put back the commencement
of the close season to August 26. That alteration
gave the fish more time to have a free run ; so
in Mr. Dickson's estimation it was an improvement.
But to give a still more favourable turn, he wanted
the fishing season to be so altered as to allow
nets-men to begin nineteen days earlier than
usual.

The General Act of 1862 lengthened the close
time by ten days. Mr. Dickson considers this was
the reason why the stock of grilse was reduced in
number; and he makes the following observation,
viz. that during close time there were so many more
fish in the river than it could sustain, that they fed
upon their own young in consequence. The remedy
he considers to be a longer continuance of the
net-fishing season, and says that it is a mistake
of the legislators to attempt to improve the posi-

THE HABITS OF THE SALMON, 51

tion of the Upper Heritors by shortening the
net season. What is really wanted, Mr. Dickson
asserts, is an extension of the weekly close time or
" Slap" as it is technically termed.

If that were conceded, the fishing season might
then go on from January 15 to August 31.
To close the fishing season too early is to in-
crease unduly the number of old salmon, which
require thinning out as much at times as old grouse
or old stags.

To close it too late is to reduce the old fish
so low in number, as to endanger the future supply
of young fish, and that would be doing more harm
than good.

Success in breeding thus depends on maintaining,
under careful observation, a due proportion between
the number of fish and the natural capacity of the
spawning-ground.

Mr. Dickson proposes that the weekly close
time should be extended to forty-eight hours.
Moreover he suggests that the season for tho

E 2

52 THE HABITS OF THE SALMON.

nets-men above Perth Bridge should commence
on the 15th of January and close on loth of
August ; and also that the lower nets should
commence operations on the 5th of February and
cease on the 31st of August, It will be seen that
by adopting these dates, both upper and lower
fishings would have 158 days of close time.

Some of the rod-fishermen might object to the
arrangement, for example, those who have taken the
beats just above Perth. They would probably com-
plain that an extension of the weekly close time
in summer would be no benefit to them, as at
that time of year salmon do not rest in their
waters. They might also say that it would be
disadvantageous to make any extension of the annual
open season below Perth, as they would lose the
very fish which at present have a free run. But
they would really lose nothing in the end, even
if they could not be shown to be gainers at
first. It does not often happen that the water
is high enough to tempt many fish to leave the

THE HABITS OF THE SALMON. 53

tideway in August. But it stands to reason
that by taking ten days from the upper nets-
men, the rod-fishermen would have a better
chance of sport, let alone the advantages result-
ing from the addition of twelve hours to the
weekly close time throughout the season. If such
an arrangement as Mr. Dickson proposed is ever
carried out, and no new netting stations are
established above the present highest station, the
upper waters would be fairly stocked with clean
fish in very good condition. Moreover, miles of
available spawning ground, which salmon cannot
reach owing to the restrictions in the weekly
close time, would be tenanted by a fair number
of breeding fish, whilst the lower spawning grounds
would not be so overcrowded as they are. After
careful consideration, however, I am of opinion
that Mr. Dickson's suggestions might be sup-
plemented with the stipulation that, should any
such concession be made to net fisheries, rod
fishing should commence on the ist of January.

54 THE HABITS OF THE SALMON.

I have often heard it asserted that if we fished
all the year round with rods, the future supply
of fish would not be affected. Quite so. Since
the netters in the tideways and estuaries often
catch more salmon in one day than the rods do
in a whole season, it must clearly be less inju-
rious to our future supplies to allow rod-fishing
in January, and put a stop to gravid fish being
killed in October. If a landing net were used,
no more injury would be done by catching
spent fish in January than in February, March,
and April. But the use of the gaff should be
prohibited, and should not, under any circum-
stances, be carried before the ist of May, either
on the Tay or on any other river. Rod-fishing
should be allowed to commence on Loch Tay with
perfect safety on the 15th of November, as a great
many clean-run fish generally find their way
there by that time ; and, when the weather and
water favour them, they run into the Loch through-
out the winter months. The present angling

THE HABITS OF THE SALMON. 55

season on Loch Tay is a short one, and commences
on the 5th of February. During that and the
two following months angling is at its best, but
in May it begins to fall off as nearly all the fish
run through the Loch into the Dochart, whilst
in June the sport is quite at an end. As there
are no gravid fish in Loch Tay in November,
I never could understand why the law should
prohibit the capture in that month of fish b)-
far superior in quality to those imported into
our markets from the Rhine during the winter
months, and allow rod-fishing on the Tvveed and
other rivers during November, when nine-tenths
of the fish caught are in a gravid condition. I
consider that the close time for rods in the
main river and tributaries of the Tay should be
from the loth of October, at the very latest,
to the ist of January, and from the ist of
August to the 15th of November in the Loch
itself. It is to be regretted that people whose
function it is to fix the date of the close time in

56 THE HABITS OF THE SALMON.

the Tay cannot be induced to allow clean salmon
to be caught in winter. How could their capture
injure our future supply ? In no way whatever.
The force of this argument has been conspicuously
recognized on two rivers, namely, the Thurso and
Naver. For years rod-fishermen have been allowed
to commence operations on those waters on the 1 1 th
of January, and success has constantly attended
their efforts. In a letter written to me in January,
1888, Mr. Munro, Alnahara Hotel, stated that he
killed a clean salmon in Loch Naver on the 13th
of that month. Netting has for some time com-
menced on the ist of January in the Sligo River
in the north of Ireland, and also in the little river
running out of Lough Currane at Waterville, in
the south, with the result that numbers of salmon
are sent to the London and Dublin markets from
those places on the opening day of the season. Nor
does it appear that this early netting diminishes
the stock of fish in the least ; on the contrary,
anglers have had as good sport in Lough Currane

THE HABITS OF THE SALMON, 57

of late years as ever. On that Loch the rod-
fishing does not commence until February ; but no
reason is given why anglers should not begin
operations on the ist of January. Under all the
circumstances the law might well be altered. At
this point I would state that I advocate the
sport in January only on such rivers as the Tay
and others, into which clean salmon return at
that season of the year. There are very few
gravid fish in the actual catches in January, when
the majority of unclean fish caught are spent fish,
and have to be returned to the river unharmed.
That is far less injurious than the destruction of
gravid fish in October ; and I am sure every
fisherman holds the same view on this point.

The wholesale slaughter by the nets of gravid
autumn fish does far more damage to the prospects of
a future supply than the capture of the proportionate
small number of clean fish at the commencement of
the season. If nets were prohibited above and below
tideways on all rivers not later than September

SS THE HABITS OF THE SALMON.

1st (in many rivers it should be much earlier), and if
a free run were allowed past the highest netting
stations for at least twelve hours during the weekly-
close time, I should not attach much importance to
the date of the commencement of the net season.
But, although a close time such as Mr. Dickson pro-
poses might suit the Tay as well as other early rivers,
it would of necessity be quite unsuitable for rivers
into which salmon do not run until later on ; so the
close time in those rivers should be fixed according
to their respective requirements. I observe with
regret that there is a growing inclination to extend
the netting season on some rivers beyond all rea-
sonable limits. The present annual close time
commences far too late already ; and in consequence
salmon are scarce. Yet several proprietors of
fishei les are particularly anxious to get the netting
season prolonged ; and, knowing that rod-fishermen
would not object to such extension of time, they are
willing to let the rod-fishing be prolonged for as
many days extra as are allowed for the nets. But if
they ever succeed, a more suicidal arrangement could

THE HABITS OF THE SALMON. 59

not be made. In return for the miserable conces-
sion of perhaps a fortnight's additional angling for
gravid fish unfit for the table, during which time the
catch per rod might possibly average, under the most
favourable circumstances, one fish per diem, the nets
might place to their credit an additional catch of
over a thousand breedino; fish. The nets mio^ht
continue to take as many for a time, but the result
would soon be that the proprietors would find they
had "killed the goose with the golden eggs," as
the old saw runs. The fisheries would thus greatly
decrease in value, and anglers would discover when too
late that their halcyon days of sport were at an end.^
I have already stated that there are three conflict-
ing interests on all rivers in which netting is practised
above the tideway — ist, those of the net fishings
in the tideway and estuary ; 2ndly, those of the
fisheries above the tideway as far as salmon travel
during the weekly close time ; and 3rdly, those of pro-
prietors of fisheries above that district. The first

^ The Conway is a notable example of the evil result of an
extension of the open season for nets from the ist to the 15th of
September.

6o THE HABITS OF THE SALMON.

two have a common interest in prolonging the open
season for net-fishing to the utmost limit of the law,
but are yet at variance with regard to the weekly
close time. The tideway nets-men naturally wish
the weekly close time to be as short as possible,
whilst those above the tideway always hold just
the opposite view, and want all the time they can
get. At present the law appears to be made ex-
pressly for the benefit of the latter, at the expense of
both tideway and upper proprietors. It is therefore
very evident that it is necessary that there should
be an alteration in the law as regards the fixing of
the weekly close time, even if in no other respect.'*
Boards of Conservators in England are doubtless
able, owing to their local knowledge, to form a
correct opinion as to what is most suitable to the re-
quirements of their respective rivers; but it should
not be forgotten that individual members have their
own interests at stake, more or less at variance per-

* See Appendix, in which I have expanded my meaning as to
close time. It should be borne in mind that in England, con-
servators have power to make alterations in close times, subject
to approval by the Board of Trade.

THE HABITS OF THE SALMON. 6i

haps with those of many other proprietors either below
or above them. It is only natural that each member
should vote for any scheme that would most benefit
himself. Proprietors of net fishings are not unfre-
quently in a majority at Board meetings ; therefore
it is nearly impossible that even-handed justice should
be meted out to all when the Board assembles. The
consequence is that the upper proprietors on all those
rivers which are netted above the tideway are the
greatest sufferers.

Moreover, even should it so happen that a really
good and just arrangement was made as regards
close time, Boards of Conservators have no power to
put any new rule in force, without the approval and
consent of a higher tribunal whose function it is to care-
fully consider such matters before confirming them.

It is quite certain that the Board of Trade
takes a great interest in the prosperity of our
salmon fisheries, and may be well up in the sub-
ject ; but the staff really ought to be increased by
practical anglers of varied experience. At present it
is impossible for the Board, in addition to its other

62 THE HABITS OF THE SALMON.

arduous duties, to find time to acquire that inti-
mate knowledge of the requirements of all rivers —
a knowledge necessary to enable it to form a
correct opinion on the merits of recommendations
of any particular Board of Conservators regarding
close time. Its decisions are doubtless Influenced
to a great extent by the reports of the Fishery In-
spectors. Still, the fact remains that the Board
has power to ignore any and every proposal,
however desirable it might be that the recom-
mendations of the Conservators should be carried
out ; and for this very reason there Is also the
risk that a recommendation from the same source,
wholly opposed to the real Interests of their river,
may find favour in the eyes of the Board, and carry
disastrous results. Members of Boards of Conser-
vators are somewhat In the same position as litigants
whose differences have to be settled In a court of
law. I hope it may not be considered presumption
to suggest that If the Board of Trade do not succeed
in obtaining the services of those who have constantly

THE HABITS OF THE SALMON. 63

fished the majority of our rivers, it might at least
determine the close time by a Commission composed
of our Chief Inspector as chairman, assisted by two
independent practical men, who would inspire the
public with confidence by their thorough knowledge
of the habits of salmon. Inquiries should be
held in localities, not only in the neighbourhood of
the tideway, where overwhelming suggestions would
be made in favour of the netting interests, but
also in convenient localities above there, when
witnesses could be examined on behalf of those pro-
prietors who could not be expected to give evidence
far away from their homes. Were it possible for one
to do so, our Chief Inspector is well qualified to
perform this duty by himself, but it would be more
satisfactory to the public at large if his decisions
were backed up by other practical men. These
decisions should be final, and not referred to any
other authoritv. In all probability my suggestions
will meet with little favour in the eyes of proprietors
of net fisheries, and I confess that my sympathies

64 THE HABITS OF THE SALMON.

tend towards upper proprietors, on whose property
quantities of fish are annually born and bred,
I may say almost entirely for the benefit of the
proprietors of net fisheries below and next to the
tideway.^ If lower proprietors would consent to
a reasonable extension of the weekly close time,
I am quite convinced that they would be no losers ;
on the contrary, they would be great gainers
in the long run. There would then be so much
less need for fresh legislation ; but as long as they
hold out for such a monopoly as they at present pos-
sess, there will be no remedy for the evil until the
law is altered so as permanently to remove the
question of close time from the sway of partial in-
terests and settle it by independent persons, ready
to mete out even justice to all concerned. It may
be asked, "Why make such a fuss about close
time ? " The simple answer is, and I feel confident
that many will agree with me, that it is the key to
the situation ; in other words, to the adjustment of
* This remark applies equally also to Scotland and Ireland.

THE HABITS OF THE SALMON. 65

the various claims of netting proprietors and anglers,
as the prosperity of our salmon fisheries, and the
increase or decrease of a most valuable article
of food depends in great measure upon the periods
fixed to suit each river.

But no river would reap the benefit of an
extension of close time unless the stipulations were
more rigidly enforced than they are at present.
For instance, clean salmon are found during the
whole of the annual close season in many rivers,
and it is well known that consignments of them
are sent to the London and other markets during the
fence months. The fish are caught in the estu-
aries of rivers and on the adjacent coast by nets
ostensibly used for catching white fish. It is easy
enough to pack them in the ordinary boxes with
other fish, and, if I am rightly informed, no one
has the power to search or seize those boxes ;
therefore this illeoral traffic in salmon is car-

O

ried on with impunity. Rhine salmon are
frequently imported into our English markets during

66 THE HABITS OF THE SALAION,

the annual close season, but no one cares how
many of the fish that are exposed for sale on the
slabs of the fishmongers' shops are genuine Rhine
salmon ? I am convinced that many of them are
bred and born on this side of the English
coast and supplied to the trade through secret
channels. If the importation of Rhine salmon
were prohibited, there would of necessity be an
immediate cessation of the sale of poached fish in
our markets, as the mere possession of salmon
during the annual close season would subject the
offender to a heavy penalty, but for obvious rea-
sons we cannot resort to that remedy. It is
high time, however, that all injurious traffic in salmon
should be stopped ; not only the mock imports just
alluded to, but also the considerable exports of un-
seasonable fish from this country to the Continent
where a readv sale for even such tasteless wares is
only too easily found.

SPENT FISH.

It has been proved beyond doubt that the
earliest running fish spawn in the upper waters
as soon as October, whilst later travellers spawn
in corresponding succession up to the end
of February. Some few have been known to
spawn in March. Pea-fish, i.e. gravid female fish,
are caught in almost every river in the spring ; there
were more of them one year in the Blackwater,
Co. Cork, than in any other river I ever fished.
I have caught them in that river up to May, but
I have never caught or heard of any one catching
a male fish in that condition after March, and
very much doubt whether any male fish are to be
found in that condition at that time. We should
gain but little had we to rely on pea-fish for
our future supplies, for it is doubtful whether the
ova spawned after March ever come to maturity.
It is said that the earliest spawning salmon are
the first to go to sea as spent fish, and that seems

F 2

OS THE HABITS OF THE SALMON.

natural enough, as they should be the first ready
to do so, but whether they actually reach the salt
water before the others, in spite of their earlier
start, is a very doubtful matter in rivers having
a long course. Take the Tay again for ex-
ample. The earliest run of salmon there occurs in
autumn, all of which spawn in the Dochart, — a
tributary of Loch Tay. The spawning season
commences in the Dochart at the latter end of
October and lasts until the middle of December.
The spent fish remain in that river for about six
weeks after they have done spawning, when they
fall back into Loch Tay, and are caught in con-
siderable numbers in the loch by anglers in
February and March, but afterwards they are very
seldom or perhaps never seen there. The spawning
season commences in the main river, the Lyon
and other tributaries, in November, earlier or later
as the case may be, and numbers of fish which
run up later on spawn in the lower waters.
If the fish which begin to spawn at the end of

SPENT FISH. 69

October and the beginning of November in the
upper spawning grounds were ready to commence
their seaward journey by the middle or latter end
of January, I see no reason why those that have
spawned in the lower waters in November and
December should not be ready for the salt water
in February. The latter having a very short
distance to go, would find themselves in salt water
weeks before those which have commenced their
seaward journey one hundred miles and more
up the river a month earlier. It is well known
that spent fish travel down the river very slowly. A
succession of heavy floods accelerates their jour-
ney ; but even if that were not so, if the immense
numbers of spent fish which have spawned in the
lower waters were all to remain stationary, and
endeavour to hold on until the army of descending
fish from the upper and middle waters and tribu-
taries had passed them, to say nothing of being
put about by the ascending clean fish, they
would undoubtedly have such an uncomfortable

70 IHE HABI2S OF THE SALMON.

time of it, from being constantly elbowed out of
their resting-places, as to force them to sea,
willing or not. Therefore, it is not improbable
that in rivers of a long course the spent fish of
the lower waters clear out sooner than those
from the upper ; the majority of those having
spawned in the lowest spawning grounds preced-
ing those which have spawned higher up. The
last to reach salt water are the earliest ascending
fish which have spawned in the highest spawning
grounds. It is possible that those fish which
reach the salt water first, acquire the condition
of clean fish, and are ready for the fresh water
again before others have got there later on. If
some of those which reach the sea first re-appear
as spring fish on their next visit to fresh water,
we could thus account for the fact that additional
protection, and artificial breeding of autumn
salmon, have been the means of considerably
increasing the numbers of our early visitors. But
although it is possible that the first kelts that get to

SPEA'^T FISH. '/I

sea after spawning, return into fresh water
bright and silvery before others which get there
later on, the necessary time they remain in the
sea before returning is a problem as yet unsolved.
It has been proved that some fish return to fresh
water within four months from the time they
were marked, and therefore we may suppose
that spent fish can acquire the condition of clean
fish within that time. If all the spent fish re-
appeared in fresh water as soon as they had re-
covered their condition, the run of clean fish into
our rivers would last only for four months or
thereabouts ; but we all know that at the very
time the spent fish go seawards, clean fish pass
them to take up their quarters in fresh water,
which must have spawned during a previous year.
For example, clean fish that are running up in
February and JMarch, must at the latest have
gone to sea as spent fish in May of the previous
year, and calculating that they would acquire the
condition of clean fish in about four months, they

72 THE HABITS OF THE SALMON.

must have remained in the sea for five months

after they had recovered their condition.

SPAWNING SALMON, &c.

It is not an uncommon belief that all salmon spawn
every year, but that this is an impossibility will at
once be seen from the fact that in many of our
rivers clean fish run up during the spawning season,
their very condition forbidding any possibility of
their spawning until the season of the following
year. It is, however, quite possible that salmon
which leave the sea later on spawn every year ; for
example, fish which have run up in July, spawning
the following autumn, and returning to the sea
as kelts, say the following April, may run up again
the following August, and spawn again the following
November or December, and so on, year after year.
There is not much to say on*\;he habits of salmon
during the spawning season that is not already

SPA WNING SALMON, <^c. 73

known ; but the following account sent to me by-
Mr. Malloch, of Perth, who has passed his life
among the salmonidae, will, I venture to say, be
read with interest ; — ■

" On the Tay and its tributaries salmon begin to
spawn the first week in November, and a few in
October. The first thing to make salmon spawn is
a frosty night ; they come out of the pools and
streams on to a suitable bed for the purpose, where
the stones are pretty large and mixed with gravel
which does not shift with the action of the water, and
always select a place where they can work up. The
female turns upon her side and commences to dig her
tail into the gravel, and gives seven or eight scoops,
turning up the gravel and making the water quite
dirty. While she is doing this the spawn is coming
from her, from eighteen to twenty roe at every turn.
You may wonder how I know this. For ten years I
observed it at my father's house, where there is a
cutting from the river for the purpose of driving the
mill-wheel. Just before it reaches the wheel there is a

74 THE HABITS OF THE SALMON.

large iron pipe, about nine inches in diameter, run
across this cutting for the purpose of taking water
from the engine-boiler. When fish were spawning
there was always a pair above the pipe, with their
tails almost touching it. The pipe was raised above
the level of the cutting, the bottom of which, being clay
and stones mixed, was so hard that the fish were not
able to dig it up. I used to lie down, with nothing
but my head exposed, almost touching the water.
When the female turned up the soil she put out the
spawn, which went round to the back of the pipe,
and I had no trouble In seeinQ^ how much roe she
put out each time. It gradually disappeared behind
the pipe, so that before she turned up the soil again
it was carried some way down the stream. Year after
year fish spawn here. When a fish is newly upon her
bed she turns up the soil very often, about once in five
minutes, but sometimes oftener ; when she has reached
a depth of from six to twelve inches she begins to
work up stream, and continues working up until she
has finished. If the gravel is easily turned up, she

SFAWNIA'G SALMON, &-r. 75

completes the work three yards above where she
commenced. The bed to all appearance looks like a
newly-filled grave with a hole at the top of it, which
I am quite sure has often been the means of letting
the angler in over his waders. The spawn is covered
in amongst the gravel, some of it ten inches deep.
How the small fry with the little sack can come up
from this depth I know not, but they do. When the
female leaves off, another very often takes her place,
and goes on working up in the same way. This
year, 18S5, ^ have observed four and five females
come after each other and work up in this way until
the lead has reached twenty yards long. The male,
when not disturbed by other ones, remains beside the
female ; he never turns up the gravel ; the only
part you now see him take is to push the female
sideways off the bed ; as soon as he has done this he
returns to his old place, and I presume that is the
time he puts the melt on the roe, working at the
bottom quite in the bed. If it is a pair of grilse, the
male remains pretty quiet ; not so with an old male

76 THE HABITS OF THE SALMON.

salmon, which makes for every intruder that comes
near him. I have seen them do this thousands
of times, but only once have I seen a salmon take hold
of another, and that was only for a moment. I had
been watching a pair of salmon quite close to me ; a
small male grilse was always coming up and remain-
ing behind the bed, and every minute or two the old
fellow had a run at him for fifty or sixty yards. On
one occasion he took him in his mouth by the middle,
but immediately let him go. The next time he did not
follow it, yet the grilse went off as fast as it could
swim, and came back to the same spot in a few minutes.
The length of time salmon take to deposit their
spawn if the weather is favourable is from seven to
fourteen days, and no one would credit the quantity of
spawn that is washed away by the current. I con-
sider that there are not ten eggs in lOO that get
covered up. I counted forty-seven eggs in less than
a square foot, and for yards below they were quite
as thick ; but this was on a splendid bed, where the
fish dug deep quite easily. When the river begins

SFA WNING SALMON, &-c. 77

to subside after the first flood that succeeds the
spawning process you can see on the water-mark
thousands of eggs that have been washed away from
the beds. Conditions of weather and water have a
great effect on spawning salmon. When a freshet
comes, although a fish has been on the bed for three
or four days, she will run up and continue spawning
again on a new bed. They spawn every hour in the
twenty-four, but the time they are most busy is
from about 6 p.m. till about midnight, when they
seem to get tired and fall back into the quiet water ;
but in the afternoon, from about three, they begin
to run up again. Both male and female shift after
they have spawned. I have never seen a fish clean
spawned out ; as they retain a few eggs after they
have left the beds. If the frost is very severe, so
that it begins to take hold of the bottom (grue we
call it), the fish leave off spawning. If the male is
taken from the female, and there are plenty of males
about, another one takes its place in a few minutes.
I have known of over a dozen males taken from the

78 THE HABITS OF THE SALMON.

side of a female by the gaff in one night. This is a
favourite trick of poachers when they see a pair of
fish within reach of the gaff. In the spring you will
see a great many fish the tips of whose tails and
back fins have lost the skin entirely. This is on
account of the water leaving them, when the back fin
and the tail by being exposed above the surface of
the water become frost-bitten. They will crawl up to
their beds at night, when there is not as much water
as will half cover them. Yellow trout can be seen
spawning with sea trout, sea trout with grilse, and
grilse with salmon. I may add, that if the weather
keeps very cold, the fish that have spawned in
November and December will seldom go down
before March, and that the females leave first."

I now pass to a kindred topic of general, and,
to salmon-breeders, of material interest. I am
a firm believer in the theory that salmon, as
a rule, return periodically from the sea to the
rivers in which they were bred. Those of one river
differ in shape and condition from those of other

SPAWNING SALMON, &-r. 79

waters. Some of them occasionally lose their
way and run up strange rivers, perhaps in company
with the natives of those rivers. Local fishermen
detect strangers at a glance when they meet them,
and I have frequently had them pointed out to me.
The followinof is a notable instance. There are
three rivers in the south of Norway, the Lyngckil,
the Mandal, and the Ovinesdal, that flow into the
North Sea, about twenty miles distant from each
other. The shape and condition of the salmon that
frequent these rivers are so distinctly different that
you can tell directly to which river they belong.
The Qvinesdal specimen is a lanky, ill-proportioned
fish, hardly differing in appearance from an ill-
mended kelt. The Lyngdal salmon is a handsome
well-made-up fish, but cannot be compared with a
Mandal salmon, which in shape and symmetry is
somewhat similar to a Shannon fish, the king of all
salmon, as far as shape and condition are concerned.
During the five years I fished the Lyngdal I some-
times caught several unmistakable Mandal and

8o THE HABITS OF THE SALMON.

Qvinesdal salmon. Most conclusive proof that sal-
mon return to their native rivers is furnished in
the following letter written by the late Frank Buck-
land, in Land and Water, of February, 1866.

"■ As all facts relative to the marvellous, but as
yet not well-authenticated instinct of the salmon
are most valuable, I have great pleasure in placing
on record the most curious case I ever heard, which
proves beyond doubt that these mysterious children
of the flood know their own homes and will return
to them through the wilderness of water with the
same unerring instinct as do foxes, dogs, and cats,
upon land. A friend of mine, who owns a well-
known island on the west coast of Scotland, netted
a certain pool in his fishing, and out of a number
of fish caught, he carefully marked some twenty or
thirty. He then put these fish on board his yacht,
and keeping them alive, sailed right round his island
then up a creek to the mouth of a river, the
salmon w^ere then transferred up the river, which,
although close to the river in which they were

SPAWNING SALMON, ^c. 8i

caught, was in no way connected with it, having
a different watershed. It is as though the sahiion
had been carried from one heel of an enormous
horse-shoe round to the other heel, and then taken
right up into the middle of the horse-shoe and
there let loose. During the same season that these
fish were transferred, some (the exact number of
which will be sent me) of these marked fish were
caught in their own pool with the net, and one
by the proprietor of the fishing himself, with the
rod in the river near the pool. On examining the
map, I find that these fish must have come back
again to their own river, a circuit of forty miles
at least from the lake where they were turned out,
and they must have passed six or seven tributaries,
up which they did not ascend, although there was
nothing to prevent them. What was the wondrous
power that guided these fish back to their home ? "
It cannot be assumed for one moment that this is
a solitary instance, and therefore we must believe
that salmon, finding that they have run into strange

G

82 THE HABITS OF THE SALMON.

rivers, often return to sea and try to find the way
into their relative waters.

The reason why salmon differ so much in shape
and condition may be this. As regards shape ; it
is probable that fi'om the time they were hatched
out to the time they went to sea as smolts, they
were sustained by food of a more fattening nature
in some rivers and tributaries of rivers than
in others, and for this reason have developed into
larger and better-shaped fish as adults than those
which have had poorer food to live on. As regards
condition ; it is not unreasonable to assume that
salmon of every river have their own particular
feeding ground in the sea, to which they are
instinctively guided on leaving the fresh water, as
surely as they are to their native river, when they
return there as clean fish. Of course their condition
varies according to the quality of the food they get
in those feeding-grounds. Fresh-water fish differ in
size, shape, and condition in varioes rivers, and this
can be accounted for only by the fact that the food

SPA IVMNG SALMON, ^^c. 83

is more fattening in some rivers than in others.
Trout, for instance, are larger and in better trim in
rivers rLinnin<j throuo-h chalk and limestone than in
those whose beds are of a different geological
formation. In some rivers they never weigh more
than half a pound, but if they are taken thence and
put into a stew and fed, they grow quickly, and
attain a remarkable size. In the sea, as on land, it
is natural to suppose that there are plenty of poor
as well as rich feeding-grounds. Salmon thrive and
grow fat in rich sea pastures, just as cattle thrive
and grow fat on rich land. Poorly-fed salmon never
appear shapely and strong, and although the quality
of their flesh is not so much affected, the fish rarely
attain better proportions than a badly mended kelt.
Though we may fairly assume that salmon of each
river have their own particular feeding-grounds in
the sea, yet it is not possible to verify this supposi-
tion, as their ocean haunts have never been actually
discovered. Soon after the spent fish reach the
sea, they are, in every sense of the word, too deep

G 2

84 THE HABITS OF THE SALMON.

for us, and take up their quarters for the time being
where nets cartnot reach them. On returning they
leave the deep lor the shallower waters along the
coast, pick their way to the estuary of their own
river, and thus reach their native home. Once only
have I met with circumstanjces that would assist
me in identifying salmon seen in any locality along
the coast as belonging to any particular river. This
was in July, 1S87, when on a visit to Burnham in
Somersetshire. During my stay there I was
surprised to hear of the numbers of salmon that
were caught by the nets day after day in the
tideway of the Parrett River, and, being interested
in all matters connected with our salmon fisheries,
en making inquiries I ascertained that salmon were
caught in the Parrett from February to August as
well as botchers or grilse, during the summer
months. I also learnt that there are no spawning
grounds in the Parrett, and that the nearest spawn-
ing grounds were in the Taw in Devonshire. A
few salmon, however, have been occasionally seen

SPAWyLVG SALMON, &'c. 85

spawning in the Cannington River, a small tributary
of the Parrett that runs into the tidal portion of that
stream below Bridgewater, but they are generally
killed by poachers, and I was told that smolts were
unknown. Now I believe this account to be true.
There is only one water bailiff employed, whose sole
duty appears to be to prevent nets being worked
during the close time. What, then, are these salmon
which are caught in the estuary and tideway of the
River Parrett ? I do not believe they are natives of
any of the neighbouring Devon or Cornish rivers, as
salmon rarely appear there until the autumn. It is
very certain they do not belong to either the Parrett,
the polluted Somersetshire Avon, or Glamorgan-
shire Taff or Ely, and the inference is, they are
Severn, Wye, or Usk fish, feeling their way along
the Somersetshire coast, en route to their own
waters from their own feeding-grounds. I think
some of them, instead of crossing the estuary
below Burnham, having tasted fresh water, are
enticed up the Parrett by the flood tide, never to

86 THE HABITS OF THE SALMON.

return. The Parrett is scarcely a salmon river, and
the estuary is nothing more or less than a natural
salmon trap. I have never heard that salmon have
been caught in stake nets higher up the Somerset-
shire coast, probably because on leaving the estuary
of the Parrett they soon get a taste of Bristol filth.
The Avon discharges its dirty waters into the Bristol
Channel, and, to avoid the filth, the fish take a
course along mid-channel to the Monmouthshire
coast, along which they pick their way to their own
respective homes. I would suggest that the one
possible chance of ascertaining the identity of salmon
caught in the Parrett would be to mark a number
of Severn, Wye, and Usk fish, then the capture of
any one of these would be quite sufficient for the
purpose.

Taking all things into consideration, we might
almost be led to believe that the feeding-grounds
of the Severn, Wye, and Usk salmon are situated
not very far from the Somersetshire coast. Of course
this is mere guess-work, and although it might be

GRILSE. 87

an interesting matter to know exactly where the
feeding-grounds are situated in the sea, the know-
ledge would not contribute to the solution of any
practical question.

It suffices to say that, whereas spent fish are
worthless when they leave our rivers, a proportion
of them return to us sooner or later in their best
condition for the food of mankind.

GRILSE.

It would appear that grilse are quite as irregular
in their times for enterino: fresh water as are adult
salmon. It is not an uncommon belief that the
first run of grilse is made in summer, or early
in the autumn of the same year in which they went
to sea as smolts. As a matter of fact, we know
this to be true in reofard to some of their num-
ber ; but it is equally certain that many do not so
return, and remain behind until they have grown
into adult fish. The rivers in the south-west of

88 THE HABITS OF THE SALMON.

England afford valuable evidence touching the ir-
regular habits of grilse. With the exception of
the Hampshire Avon, the Test, the Itchen, and
one or two others flowing into the sea on the
Hampshire and Dorsetshire coasts, the rivers in
the south-west district are comparatively late
rivers. It is generally understood that, in spring
and summer, only a few fish frequent those waters,
whilst in some of them grilse are totally unknown,
and salmon do not appear until late in the autumn.
Peal, as they are termed, run up in considerable
numbers in summer, but they are different from
grilse ; " Peal " being merely a local name for sea
trout or sewin in those counties. The Hampshire
Avon is a fine large river, into which grilse never
are found to run ; nor do they appear in the Itchen
or Test. I understand from a gentleman living
on the banks of the Avon that it has long been
a matter of wonder to him and others that grilse
are unknown in this and other Dorsetshire rivers ;
but he said that by the middle of June the streams

GRILSE. 89

are choked up with weeds down to the mouth,
and therefore there was no chance for observation
in the summer months. If grilse frequented the
Avon, they would be seen on the spawning beds ;
but in all probability they are unable to make
head-way amongst the weeds, and therefore give
it up as a bad job. There are, however, few weeds
in the Devon and Cornish rivers ; in fact there is
nothing to prevent the fish from running just
as high as they please when the water is not too
low.

Again, the Ogmore is a river in Glamorganshire,
flowing into the Bristol Channel. Formerly, before
its waters were polluted by mine water, gravid
salmon ran up this river during the late autumn
months, in considerable numbers, but never earlier,
and smolts went to sea in vast numbers at the
usual season of the year. I lived on the banks of
the Ogmore during my younger angling days, and
I can state from personal observations that grilse
were unknown in the Ogmore, and that it was

90 THE HABITS OF THE SALMON.

a matter of wonder, to myself and others, what
became of the smolts, which must either have re-
mained in the sea until they had grown into adult
fish, or have run up another river as grilse. Now
there is no river in which grilse are found nearer
to the Ogmore than the Usk, neither are there any
stake nets for taking salmon between the mouth
of the Ogmore and the Monmouthshire coast, so
we may therefore assume that few, if any, Usk (or
for the matter of that. Wye or Severn) fish make
their way to these rivers along the Glamorganshire
coast. It is possible that Ogmore smolts may
travel across to the Somersetshire coast, and run
up as grilse along with Usk, Wye, or Severn fish ;
but there is not a particle of evidence forthcoming
to warrant such an assumption, and for the present
we must remain in utter ignorance of their move-
ments. Here, again, we might succeed in acquiring
some information by marking the fish.

The same irregularity of habit follows grilse in
some of the Norwegian rivers. During the five

GRILSE. 91

years I fished the Lyngdal, which flows in the
southern part of that country, grilse made their
appearance only in two of them. On reference
to my log-book, I find that no grilse were caught
by either nets or rods during the other three
vears, although there was nothino: that I know of
to prevent them running up as usual. Salmon
spawn in all these rivers just mentioned, and
smolts go to sea at the usual time, year after year.
But what becomes of them? It is certain that
only a very small percentage return as grilse to the
waters in which they were bred ; still they exist
somewhere, or the salmon in those rivers would
soon be altogether extinct. We know that vast
numbers of parr (irrespective of fish of that name
of a similar size and appearance, said to be a distinct
species) remain behind in fresh water, after others
of the same age have donned their silvery dress
and gene to sea. It is not, therefore, surprising that
a certain proportion of grilse, as well as adult fish,
cease, for some portion of their sojourn in the sea.

92 THE HABITS OF THE SALMON.

to feel the migratory instinct leading them back to
fresh water. I can therefore only conclude, in the
absence of any evidence that would lead us to
think otherwise, that thousands of smolts remain
in the sea, grow into grilse, and still remain there,
to grow into adult salmon.

MAIDEN SALMON.

Maiden salmon are those fish which have never
been up a river to spawn. In my younger fishing
days, I was taught to believe that the term
"Maiden" applied only to grilse, and not to adult
fish ; this was probably because people believed
that all the grilse spawned in some river or another.
It has, however, been proved of late that large
numbers of them remain in the sea and grow into
large fish, therefore the term maiden must apply to a
certain number of salmon, as well as to grilse. I
myself believe that the so-called salmon of limited

MAIDEN SA LMON. g ^

size, which we catch in the spring are maiden fish.
The Aberdeenshire Dee is notorious for the small
average weight of its spring salmon. Occasion-
ally heavy fish are caught during the spring, but
the average weight of the spring run is 7 lbs. to
8 lbs. I have often asked myself the question,
"What fish are these, and when have they been
up the river to spawn ?" Take, for example, a
fresh-run Dee fish, 7 lbs. weight, caught, say, in
April, 18S7. If that fish had been up the river to
spawn the previous season, it must have been iden-
tical with a smolt that had migrated to sea at the
latest during the spring of 1885, running up the
river the same year as a grilse, and returning to
the sea as a grilse kelt in the spring of 1886.
Now, supposing that as a grilse kelt it only
weighed 2 lbs., is it possible that between the time
it went to sea in 1886 and the month of April,
1887, it could only have attained the weight of
7 lbs. ? The Dee holds very heavy salmon, as any
angler who has fished the river during the autumn

94 THE HABITS OF THE SALMON.

months can testify. I cannot believe that some of
these fish have ever been up the river to spawn ;
but I think that they must be identical with
smolts of the spring of i8S6, which had remained
that year in the sea as grilse, and put in their
appearance in April, 1887, ^s maiden salmon.
That there are maiden salmon of heavy weights,
I have no reason to doubt ; but how to distinguish
them from those which have spawned, appears to
me to be a difficult matter. In the course of a
discussion I had on piscatorial subjects not long
ago with a friend, I was informed that he
could easily detect a maiden salmon ; but I did
not quite gather how he was able to do so. If I
were asked to point out a maiden fish of from
10 lbs. to 12 lbs. weight, I should select one from
a run of May fish in the Blackwater, Co. Water-
ford, or from a run of fish at the same season in
the Boyne. Grilse are seldom seen high up in
the Boyne, but plenty are caught in the nets in
the estuary, and the tideway above and below

CONDITIONS OF A GOOD GRILSE YEAR. 95

Drogheda. Those which escape remain in the sea
during the spawning season, and I have no doubt,
in my own mind, that they are the very fish which
make their appearance at the end of April and
May. As is the case in the Blackwater, these fish
have more the appearance of overgrown grilse than
salmon, and in all probability are maiden fish. It must
be borne in mind that, like the Hampshire Avon,
the Boyne is choked up with weeds after May, and
it is therefore impossible for fish to leave the tide-
way during the summer months, except in a high
flood. This may account for so few grilse being
seen high up the River Boyne.

WHAT ARE THE CONDITIONS OF A
GOOD GRILSE YEAR?

In answer to this question put by Mr. Willis Bund
in writing " Salmon Problems," I would say that
a good grilse season dc^pends mainly on the

96 THE HABITS OF THE SALMON.

successful issue of the spawning season two or
three years previously. Let us therefore inquire
by what cause the spawn and spawning grounds
are liable to be affected. All the spawning
grounds may have held their full complement of
spawning fish, and may have been well covered with
ova before hatching-time. But if heavy floods
appear, the eggs are washed away and destroyed.
Again, fish may have spawned in good places
which, from want of rain, have been left high and
dry; that also would be fatal. In a good spawn-
ing season, the river remains at a medium height
from the time the fish deposit their eggs to the
time of hatching. That there are good and bad
grilse years goes without saying, but we generally
anticipate a good grilse year two or three years
after a good spawning season. A good grilse
year is also dependent in a great measure on the
state of the water at the time they run. There
may be plenty of fish which cannot make head-
way for want of water, and so the greater pro-

coyDiiJoys of a good grilse year. 97

portion are kept back, remain in the sea, and
never put in an appearance up the river until the
year following. The year 1885 was perhaps one
of the best grilse years in the Tay within the
memory of man. Grilse average a heavier weight
in the Tay than in any river of the United
Kingdom, except, perhaps, the Awe, in Argyllshire,
where they run up to 10 lbs. in weight as early
as the month of June. I have seen the cast of
a grilse caught in the Tay that weighed 14 lbs.,
which, I should think, must be the largest on
record. In the autumn of 1885, out of 163
fish killed on the Stanley water by Sir Hussey
Vivian, Bart., and myself, only fifty-nine scaled
over 10 lbs. A great many weighed 1 1 lbs. and
12 lbs., and were all grilse. Large numbers of them
continued to run into the Tay in 18S5 up to
December, and I was informed on good authority
that when the nets were drawn in that year
for the purpose of procuring ova for scientific
purposes, there were ten grilse to every salmon

II

98 THE HABITS OF THE SALAfON.

landed. Nearly all were fresh run and quite
silvery. Grilse were equally plentiful that year
in other fisheries on the Tay and equally scarce
in 1886. Out of 136 fish falling to my own and
one other rod on the Stanley water in the autumn
of 1886, sixty-seven only were grilse, and their
weights averaged considerably less than those
caught in 1885; only two scaled 10 lbs., not one
of them went 9 lbs., and the remainder only ran
from 5 lbs. to 8 lbs. It would be interesting to
know whether the corresponding spawning seasons
of the previous years had been good or bad ones,
but with the limited knowledge we at present
possess, it is impossible to give a more satisfactory
answer to Mr. Willis Bund's question.

Salmon run into fresh water every day in the
year, but, so far as my memory goes, there has
been no attempt made to explain why grilse never
make their appearance before April, and cease to
run after October. Thousands and thousands of
grilse are supposed to be in condition to leave

CONDITIONS OF A GOOD GRILSE YEAR. 99

the sea in the winter and early spring months ;
yet for some unknown reason they never attempt
to make the journey to fresh water with the
adult fish at that time. It has been proved
beyond a doubt that the habits of salmon depend
chiefly upon the temperature of the water, and in
my opinion grilse do not begin to run until the
temperature of the fresh water is higher than in
winter. The sudden change from comparatively
warm salt water to cold fresh water in winter and
spring is injurious to them, as grilse are in the
immature stage, and therefore they remain in the
sea until their instinct leads them from it. They
seem to be aware when our rivers have reached
a certain height of temperature, and that is not
until April or May, or even the beginning of June.
It is true that salmon in the parr stage can live
and thrive in very cold water, but then they have
been born and bred in it, and therefore acclima-
tized to the cold ; but with all that, they do not
care to migrate to sea and be transferred to a

II 2

loo THE HABITS OF THE SALMON.

warmer temperature too soon, as they dislike the
sudden change, and swim backwards and forwards
in the tideway for a time before they face pure
sah water. The case is different with adult spent
fish, for they do not tarry in the tideway, but go
straight out to sea without fear or delay. Again,
in " Salmon Problems " Mr. Willis Bund gives
an interesting account of some smolts being trans-
ferred from fresh to undiluted salt water which
was in the Brighton Aquarium, and the writer
states that each fish when dropped into salt water
gave three little sobs, just as though the dose
was rather too strong. They afterwards coursed
rapidly round the tank, and then settled down into
their ordinary mood. Surely this experiment may
induce us to assume that smolts object to any
sudden change, and therefore it would not be at all
surprising if grilse, in their immature stage, do not
differ in their habits in this respect. This may
be why they prefer to stay in the sea during the
cold wintry weather. It is true that grilse oc-

DO SALMON FEED IN FRESH WATER 1 ici

caslonally begin to run much earlier in some
years than in others, but I have never heard of
one being caught before April I think the fore-
going remarks sufficiently explain the reason why
grilse differ from adult salmon in their habits
on entering fresh water. Doubtless we might
gather some information on this interesting subject
by taking notes of the temperature of the water
in various rivers year by year just at the time
when orrilse are runninfj. Should it turn out to
be a fact that they never attempt to leave the
sea until the fresh water has risen in temperature
to a certain height, we should have corroborative
proof of the effect which the temperature of the
water has on their movements generally.

DO SALMON FEED IN FRESH WATER?
It is a very rare occurrence to find food in the
stomach of a salmon, and therefore it is generally
believed that salmon do not feed in fresh water.

I02 THE HABITS OF THE SALMON.

Dr. Francis Day, in a letter to The Field, in
November, 1885, says that "a salmon exists in
fresh water on his own fat, which has been accumu-
lated while feeding in salt water." But the writer
did not bring forward any evidence to support that
theory.^ I grant that a salmon falls off in condition
from the day it leaves the sea, because there is but
little fattening food in fresh water ; but the process
of deterioration is a gradual one, and although the
fish lose their beautiful silvery appearance, and
become more or less discoloured, they do not lose
much in weight until their ova are in an advanced
stage. I should say, therefore, that it is more proba-
ble that the ova of a salmon become developed by
the nourishment they receive from its fat, than that
the salmon itself exists upon it. Its fat disappears
in proportion as the ova develops, and by the time
it is ready to spawn, not a particle remains. It
appears to me perfectly natural that this should be
so. There can be no question as to salmon feeding in
^ This theory was believed in by the late Frank Buckland.

DO SALMON FEED IN FRESH WATER ? 103

fresh water, as they greedily take real and artificial
spinning baits of all kinds, besides prawns and
worms, to say nothing of flies natural and artificial.
It cannot be supposed that they do so to gratify the
angler's love of sport, or for their own amusement,
or that they can find pleasure in disgorging what
they have swallowed. They often greedily seize
what they suppose is natural food, though it be
attached to the coarsest tackle, and more than likely
to scare every salmon from the pool. We know this
to be a fact from every-day observation. Surely,
then, they feed in fresh water on such natural food
as they find, and I cannot make out why people
think otherwise. Thousands of salmon have been
caught in the sea which must have only a very
short time previously swallowed food. \\ hat then
becomes of the food ? It could not have been
digested at a moment's notice, nnd yet food has
rarely been found in the stomach of these fish. It
is absurd to imagine, as some people assert, that the
digestive powers of salmon are so singularly active,

I04 THE HABITS OF THE SALMON.

that the food can be got rid of almost us quickly as
it is swallowed. Ic is far more probable that on
finding themselves in trouble they disgorge their
food ; indeed there are several authenticated in-
stances of their having done so. This, therefore,
would seem to be the only true solution of the
problem.

THE EFFECT OF TEMPERATURE ON
THE HABITS OF SALMON, AS RE-
GARDS THEIR FEEDING.

Every salmon fisherman knows that the fish take
flies or baits much more greedily in cold weather
than in warm. I have frequently broken the ice on
frozen pools in the north of Scotland and caught
clean-run fish in them within a short time after-
wards. I never expect to meet with a blank day
in the coldest weather, if I know there are fish in
the river ; but salmon make a poor fight in very
cold weather, and are often brought to bank without

EFFECT OF TEMPERATURE ON SALMON. 105

having taken out a yard of line. When the tem-
perature gets warm in July and August, the fish
always become very sulky. This is generally the
time of year when the temperature of the water in
all our rivers is at its maximum heioht, when fish
refuse the most tempting lures, and although the
angler may have cast his flies in the most artistic
manner over thousands of clean-run fish, he will
as often as not go home with an empty creel.
On one occasion, when fishing the Lyngdal in the
South of Norway, down which river snow-water
never flows after the beginning of June, my friend
and I killed eleven fish one day in July, when the
fish were plentiful, and the water in first-rate order ;
but during the following night the weather changed
from temperate to very warm. The next day the
thermometer stood at 84° in the shade ; the fish
left off feeding, and we caught no more until the
weather changed again and became colder. But
although in hot weather, such as I have described,
the temperature of the water will invariably become

io6 THE HABITS OF THE SALMON.

proportionately warm in rivers that are not snow-
fed, this is not the case in the rivers that are thus
supplied, as the temperature of snow-water is so
low, that it is very little modified by atmospheric
conditions on its passage to the sea. In Norway,
and in the north of Scotland, it would appear that
salmon are acclimatized to cold weather and snow-
water. In Norway, in particular, there are rivers
that are fed by snow during the whole of the
summer months, when the salmon will take flies and
baits quite freely. They will also do so in many
rivers that are snow-fed in the north of Scotland
during the spring months, whereas in the more
southern rivers of the United Kingdom, a salmon
fisherman will hardly think it worth his while
wetting his line in snow-water.

There are many conditions of weather each having
an effect on the appetite of salmon : an east wind
at any time, particularly during the months
of September and October, accompanied by a
warm temperature and a hazy, blue atmosphere j

EFFECT OF TEMPERATURE ON SALMON, 107

a south wind ; a rapid fall of barometer ; a fog at
any time ; a still, muggy day with an over-
cast sky and a warm temperature, also have more
or less effect in making salmon disinclined to
feed. In an east wind, under the conditions I have
described, the angler may just as well stay at home.
He may possibly get a fish or two to rise the first
thing in the morning or late in the evening, but
he will waste his time fishing during the day. A
frosty night in autumn followed by a bright sunny
day, sharpens the appetite of a salmon in a mar-
vellous manner. The best day's fishing I ever had
under such conditions as those was on the Tay, in
the month of September. The water was in first-
rate order, and, for the information of my brother
anglers, I may just say that the fly I used had a
silver body. I have always noticed that during the
autumn months, as well, indeed, as at any other
season of the year, salmon are far more inclined to
feed in cold weather than in warm. The autumn
of 1886 was unusually mild, when I was fishing the

io8 THE HABITS OF THE SALMON.

Stanley water, on the Tay. On several occasions,
when the water was in first-rate order and any
amount of fresh-run fish were in the pools, I hardly
had a rise. One day I could not stir a fin with a
fly, nor could I induce a single fish to take a
phantom minnow or a prawn. On that particular
day only one or two fish were killed by six fisher-
men on the Stobhall water, known to be the cream
of the Tay. The day was still and muggy,
gossamers were floating in the air, and a foggy,
blue mist hunof over the water's surface. On the
other hand, the autumn of 1885 was cold, and
the fish took greedily up to the last day of the
season. On one occasion I even felt cold enough
to light a fire at lunch-time, and yet I had plenty
of sport, from morning till night.

Salmon are less inclined to take a fly in some
rivers than in others. Here and there they take
either flies or baits greedily, whilst in some localities
baits are preferred. Again, there are rivers in which
flies alone are taken ; and however much you may

EFFECT OF TEMPERATURE ON SALMON. 109

persevere with baits, natural or artificial, you do not
succeed. The Trent is a river in which salmon
rarely rise at flies. This is not because the water
is too deep, as many of the streams are of a depth
suitable for raising fish. Salmon in the Trent are
taken with artificial bait, but why they decline to
take a fly it is difficult to understand. The Usk is
the freest rising river I ever fished — even in July
and August, when salmon are sulky in ^ilmost every
other river — and when the water is in ply, no one
need despair of getting sport. But with an east
wind in autumn, and such conditions as those
mentioned, even on this free-rising river the sport
is spoilt, no matter how plentiful the fish may be.

In his book on "Salmon Problems," Mr, Willis
Bund states that " any salmon fisherman would
admit that salmon travel more by night than by
day." Admitting that a great proportion of fish
that ascend our rivers travel by night, I have some-
times seen them travel in very low- water when I
have been fishinc;'. Mr. Bund states, however, that

jro THE HABTTS OF THE SALMON.

unless there is a fresh In the river, salmon do not
travel in the day-time, and goes on to ask whether
it may not be that fish feed by night and not by
day. As far as my experience teaches me,
salmon feed more by day than by night. Moreover,
early in the spring they appear more inclined to
feed from about lo a.m. to i or 1.30 p.m., and
again from about 3.30 p.m. to dusk than at any
other period of the day ; or should there be a hard
frost, from 3 p.m. to dusk. In frosty weather it is
not worth while wetting a line early in the day.
Later in the spring and in the sum.mer months
when the weather becomes warm and bright,
salmon feed much earlier in the morning and later
in the evening. I do not know, however, that very
early hours are the best for fishing, as I have never
had very good sport before about 8 a.m. In the
north of Scotland and Norway, at the time of year
when you can see to read all night, salmon are
always more or less on the feed during the twenty-
four hours, but certainly not as well at night as

EFFECT OF TEMPERATURE OI\r SALMON. 1 1 v

in day-time. I noticed this particularly when
fishing the Namsen, in Norway, where I caught by
far the largest proportion of fish between 8 a.m. and
1.30 p.m. When fishing the Mols River, further
north within the Arctic circle, where the sun never
sets in summer, I noticed that the fish were far less
inclined to feed during the small hours of the
morning than at any other time. They took fairly
well up to 12 o'clock, and afterwards appeared
disinclined to feed for several hours. I have noticed
that salmon are more hungry in the spring of the
year soon after sunset, and continue to feed freely
until it is too dark to change one's fly. They then
stop feeding all of a sudden, and in my belief do
not begin again until about nine or ten in the following
morning, provided always there Is no frost. Taking
the season through, I have killed far more salmon from
this time uj) to 1.30 p.m. than during any other period
of the day, and I do not think I am wrong in
asserting that the fish feed more by day than by
night, except perhaps in the very height of summer.

112 THE HABITS OF THE SALMON.

I shall never forget a sight I witnessed on the
Boyne, in May, 1885, by the mill weir at Dunmore.
The water was dead low at the time, and also
very clear ; there was only just enough of it in
places to enable salmon to pass over the weir, and
yet the fish were moving upwards the whole day.
Every time I passed the weir backwards and
forwards to the pools, I saw fish going over. They
were coming up the shallows below the fall with
their backs out of water, and this went on for two
days in succession, during which time thousands
must have passed up. Shortly afterwards, Mr.
Fitzherbert and his party (three rods and a cross
line) killed fifty-six fish in one day's outing, twenty-
six of which number fell to Mr. Fitzherbert's own
rod. This is the only time I ever saw salmon travel
in large numbers in low water in the day-time,
though I have often seen them travelling singly and
in pairs under such circumstances. A high wind
induces them to travel in the day-time, however
low the water may be. I have seen a reach of

J'ARASITES. 113

dead water well stocked in the morning, utterly de-
serted at night, owing to having been exposed to a
high wind. However much inclined salmon may be
to enter fresh water, a high wind has great effect on
their movements. If the wind bl(3\vs to the shore,
they go straight out to sea, and do not approach
the estuary again until it changes. On the other
hand, should the wind blow from the shore, the
fish come in with the tide even when the river itself
is dead low.

PARASITES.

Salmon are infested with three different kinds of
parasites ; one kind adhere to the oriUs, and ano-lers
give it the name of " Maggot " : the others to the
body, and are commonly called sea and freshwater
lice. The- presence of maggots is generally con-
sidered as a proof that the fish are unclean ; and

in most instances justly so. but not always, for it is

I

114 THE HABITS OF THE SALMON.

not a very uncommon occurrence to find parasites in
the gills of clean fish. I have on several occasions
caught salmon with sea lice on them as well as
maggots in their gills. This has been in the spring,
when the fish are unmistakably clean ; and I have
also caught them in spring with maggots in their
gills and without sea lice on them, when their flesh
was quite equal in richness to any I ever tasted.
Perhaps, innocently enough, many a good salmon has
been returned to the river which should have had a
berth in the captor's creel. Maggots are fi-equently
found in the gills of bull trout caught in the tideway
by nets. I do not know why they are more prevalent
among bull trout than salmon, but such is the case.
With regard to parasites found on the body of salmon,
Mr. Willis Bund, in " Salmon Problems," says,
" That many ignorant persons mistake fresh- water
for sea lice." Quite so. But I would remark, that
salmon are not attacked by fresh-water lice until they
have been some time in the river ; and it is principally
in very low water, and during the hottest weather

PARASITES 1 1 5

when the fish are indisposed, that they are thus
infested. Any salmon fisherman should at once
detect the difference between fresh-water parasites
and sea lice, for they are as different as chalk and
cheese. It is generally believed that sea lice can live
no more than twenty-four hours at the utmost in fresh
water. But there have been instances of salmon
being caught forty miles up the river with sea lice
upon them. If so, and if the theory be correct, they
must have travelled these forty miles in twenty-four
hours. That appears to me impossible. I need not
repeat my remarks on the rate at which salmon travel.
I will only say that, in my belief, sea lice live in fresh
water a much longer time than twenty-four hours.
Fish infested with sea lice have been killed at
Grandtully, on the Tay, and at Meggernie Castle, on
the Lyon, a tributary of the Tay. The former
locality is at least forty miles, and the latter eighty
miles above the tideway at Perth. I did not ascertain
the exact date these fish were caught ; but assuming
that they had travelled at their maximum pace in

I 2

ii6 THE HABITS OF THE SALMON.

summer, then the parasites must have Hved in fresh
water about forty and sixty hours respectively. On
one occasion I caught a salmon with two unmis-
takable sea lice on it, in the month of June, about
half a mile below Abergeldie Castle on the Dee, in
Aberdeenshire. That must be quite sixty miles by
the river from the tideway at Aberdeen. Now the
streams of the Dee are, if anything, more rapid than
those of the Tay, and therefore it may be presumed
that this fish took a longer time to travel the distance ;
consequently the lice must have lived in fresh water
sixty hours, and in all probability longer. It is,
however, possible that in summer, sea lice live longer
in rivers when the water is warmer than at any other
time of the year. It could easily be ascertained how
lonsf sea lice can live in fresh water in different
temperatures, by keeping fish in confinement in the
boxes at a weir just above the tideway in a river
into which fish run during spring, summer, and
autumn. The cages on the weir in the Galway
river would be very suitable for making such an

A UTUMN e^' WI.YTER EMFGRA TIONOFSMOL TS. r 1 7

experiment, and by comparing notes, we might also
obtain some further light as to the rate at which
fish travel.

AUTUMN AND WINTER EMIGRATION

OF SMOLTS.

Mr. Bund, in his excellent work to which I
have alluded, gives us one unmistakable instance
of an autumn run of smolts, which took their
departure from the Severn in December, 18S4.
Since reading the account, I have made constant
inquiries, and not long since was successful in ob-
taining some reliable information on the subject.
When fishing at Galway, in September, 1887, I met
with Nicholas Browne, who for the greater part of
his life has been in charge of the rod-fishing there.
In the course of conversation he informed me that
smolts made their way to the sea every winter from

n8 THE HABITS OF THE SALMON.

that river, and that as many as twenty had been
caught in one night in the eel traps. To satisfy me
of their presence at that time (the latter end of
September), he put up a trout rod, and soon caught
a small fish, not a brown trout parr, but an unmis-
takable salmon parr, which, although it had none of
the silvery appearance of a smolt, upon close inspec-
tioe gave me the idea that the process of donning
its bathing dress, as a well-known author not
inappropriately puts it, had already commenced.
Browne informed me that, when the fishing opened
in February, all these little fish had disappeared, and
that none of them were seen again until near the
time of their spring voyage. He remarked that the
number in winter was very limited in comparison with
that in spring. I have since received a consignment
of fish which were caught in the eel-traps in the
Galway river in December, 1887, and on forwarding
them to Dr. Gunther, he pronounced them to be
samlets.

We have, therefore, evidence amounting to abso-

A UTUMN<^ WINTER EMIGRA TION OFSMOLTS. \ 1 9

lute proof, that smolts make their way to the
salt water at other times of the year than in the
spring. It must not be assumed that the two in-
stances of the late run of smolts referred to are
mere individual exceptions to the general habits of
these fish, though it is certainly surprising that we
get so little information in regard to their habits in
other rivers. On that point, however, there is a
good reason forthcoming by way of explanation.
Taking it for granted that smolts are frequently caught
in autumn and winter, the very fact of being found
in possession of them subjecting the offender to
a 'heavy penalty fully accounts for their capture
having been kept a secret. Moreover, during the
close season, when all kind of fishing is prohibited,
the banks of the rivers are deserted except by water
bailiffs and poachers. The former take little interest
except in the duties they are paid to perform, and
even if they were on the look-out, no fish would be
seen rising during the cold winter months. Thus
although the rivers might be full of smolts, the

I20 THE HABITS OF THE SALMON.

watchers may walk the river-banks for months
without seeing a single fish show itself; and thou-
sands of smolts may have passed them on their
way to sea year after year in autumn and winter
absolutely unseen by any one. In fact, had it not
been proved by the eel-traps, the presence of these
fish at Galway would probably have remained un-
known for years. But in spite of the conclusive
evidence of the winter emigrations from two rivers,
it cannot be taken for granted that such is the
general habit elsewhere. Smolts bred in the
Stormontfield, Howietown and other fish-ponds
have never as yet been known to evince the least
desire to go to sea before the spring months.
This of itself tends to upset the autumn or winter
theory, but if I am rightly informed, the smolts in
ponds mentioned above are bred exclusively from
the ova of autumn salmon. After hatching, the fry
take a certain time to develop themselves into
parr, and do not reach the smolt stage until the
spring twelve months after the date of their birth. It

A UTUMN&^ WINTER EMIGRA TION OF SMOLTS. 1 2 1

is then that they assume their silvery coat before
going to sea. Some of them, however, prefer stay-
ing in the fresh water, and do not leave the ponds
until the spring following. Therefore we have
strong evidence that smolts which go to sea in
autumn or winter are not connected with those
hatched out from autumn spawners. But there are
fish which spawn all through January and February,
or two months later than those which spawn in
November, whose ova are available for a future
supply, although perhaps in limited number. A
cold temperature, we are told, retards the hatching
of ova, and as the temperature of river water is, as
a rule, lower early in the spring than in November
and December, January and February, the ova take
longer to hatch then than at other times. It
may therefore well be, that parr bred from January
and February ova are not ready to go to sea as
smolts until five or six months later than those bred
from November ova. And if so, we have at once a
reason for the winter being chosen for the voyage.

122 THE HABITS OF THE SALMON.

Again, I do not see why the winter may not be
chosen for the emigration of the hardier fish bred in
the main river, whilst those bred artificially prefer
the spring. But to ascertain whether this is a
general habit or not, we have only to mark the
fish in order to decide once and for all. I am
inclined to believe that winter smolts are not bred
from ova spawned in November, and therefore
a considerable number of parr bred from ova of
late spawners should be marked and turned out
into the breeding ponds along with those bred from
ova of the November fish, besides turning out a lot
into the main river. We should then ascertain
whether the marked fish in the ponds evinced any
desire, by restless movement round the blocked
exits or otherwise, to get to sea in winter ; unless,
of course, it be contended that the fact of their
being in confinement would so alter their nature as
to take away, or at any rate to retard, their desire
for departing. Some of the smolts which were
turned into the river would most probably be caught

A UTUMN ^ WINTER EMIGRA TJON OF SMOL TS.\2i

in the eel-traps, on making their way to the sea,
and for the production of these I would offer a
special reward. We should derive considerable
benefit from ascertaining the exact habits of autumn
and winter smolts ; besides knowing whether they
are bred from late spawning fish, in which case they
could be enormously increased in numbers by
artificial means. The probable result of this would
be a large increase of grilse in April and May.
Naturally those smolts that reached the sea in
winter would have developed into grilse by these
months, whilst a proportion of them following their
natural instinct would come again into fresh water.
In many rivers, I have noticed that grilse of the first
run are very small, averaging no more than 3 lbs.
to 3-I lbs. in weight. It is hardly possible that
these small grilse were the very smolts that went to
sea in April and May of the previous year, as they
would surely have attained a weight of at least 5 lbs.
or 6 lbs., and so it would appear that they belong to
a family that reached salt water in the winter.

WHAT ARE UNCLEAN AND UN-
SEASONABLE SALMON ?

Undoubtedly, salmon are unclean from the
time their ova have reached that stage at which
they are commonly called gravid fish or baggits,
to the time when they return to sea as spent fish
after spawning. There are, however, different
opinions as to the true meaning of " unseasonable "
salmon.

The word "unseasonable" is not uncommonly in-
terpreted as applicable to unclean salmon only,
which, not being fit for food, are, therefore, out of
season for the table ; that is to say, every fish
unfit to be eaten at table is regarded as an un-
seasonable salmon, and vice versa as regards a
seasonable salmon. But this could not have been
the meaning intended to be given to the word
** unseasonable " by those who framed our Fishery
laws ; for, assuming that it is unlawful to kill or

UNCLEAN AND UNSEASONABLE SALMON. 125

have in possession, an unseasonable salmon, and
that it is lawful to kill or have in possession a
seasonable salmon, if the word "seasonable" is
applicable to clean salmon only, then clean salmon
could be killed all the yeeir round with impunity.
But the law imposes a heavy penalty for killing or
having in possession any salmon during the annual
close season ; therefore, it should be held, that the
word "unseasonable" is applicable under certain
circumstances to clean, as well as to unclean salmon,
and in all probability was inserted in the Fisheries
Act, in addition to, or rather in conjunction with,
the word " unclean," with the especial intention of
protecting clean salmon during the fence months.
The selection of the word, however, was a most
unfortunate one, and, to say the least of it, is very
misleading ; for, if it is unlawful to kill clean salmon
during the fence months for the reason that they
are unseasonable — that is to say, if the sole ground
of prohibition is to be the period of the year in
which they are taken, and not the condition in

126 THE HABITS OF THE SALMON.

which they are found — it should follow, that it is
lawful to kill gravid and spent fish during the open
season, because it must be held that they are
seasonable.

The following cases in which the Sheriff of the
Selkirkshire Court appears to have taken this view,
are reported in the Field oi December ist, 1888 : —

" Back-end Salmon. — A case that will be read with interest
by late salmon anglers was heard on Wednesday in the Selkirk-
shire Sheriff's Court. There were two cases in which certain
persons were charged with having had ' unseasonable ' salmon
in their possession. In one case the police-constable who seized
the fish, stated he could not testify as to whether it was ' clean '
or ' unclean ;' and the inspector of police, by whom the salmon
had been examined, said it was a female fish partly spawned. A
leading witness in the other case deponed that he never knew of
an angler returning any kind of salmon to the river at this season ;
he took all he got However, it was different in the spring.
Both cases were dismissed by the sheriff. Had a conviction
been secured in any of the cases referred to, it would have
caused some uneasiness amongst salmon anglers. The practice
during the back-end season is to take all fish caught by legal
means, no matter how near the spawning point they may be.
The fact, however, that persons should have been proceeded
against for having in their possession unseasonable fish at this
time of the year, proves that the law on the subject requires
elucidation."

UNCLEAN AND UNSEASONABLE SALMON. 127

If the word "unclean" had been inserted in the
indictment, I do not see how a conviction could
have been avoided ; but, in the absence of that word,
if the decision of the Sheriff of the Selkirkshire
Court is to be established as a precedent, and
the autumn salmon that are almost in the act of
spawning, are allowed to be killed by anglers with
impunity, with what justice can any person be
convicted in future, for killing a spent or gravid
salmon during the spring months ? Many a poor
man has been fined and sent to prison for killing
gravid and spent fish in the spring of the year,
whereas any one may gaff and kill gravid fish at
the back end of the season, and no notice is taken
of it.

Which of the two proceedings, may I ask, is the
most injurious to a future supply ? Anglers kill-
ing spent fish which devour thousands of smolts
in their passage to sea during the spring months,
as well as a few gravid fish whose ova are almost
worthless for breeding purposes ; or, the wholesale

128 THE HABITS OF THE SALMON.

slaughter of gravid fish all through the back end of
the season — the very fish we depend upon for the
occupation of the spawning beds during the forth-
coming spawning season ? To convict in one case
and not in the other is most unjust. The following
is a report of another case in which the question
was raised by defendants' solicitor as to the inter-
pretation of the word " unseasonable " : —

A Nice Point in the Salmon Fishery Law. — The county
magistrates, sitting at Barnstaple Police Court, Avere on Wednes-
day called on to decide a somewhat novel point, raised in the
interpretation of the Salmon Fishery Acts. Five fishermen, of
Barnstaple, were summoned for having taken an unseasonable
salmon on April 24th, at Heanton Punchardon, the Taw and
Torridge Fishery Commissioners being the prosecutors. It
appears that the defendants were seen to catch a salmon in their
net on April 24th, during the close season^ and put it into a bag,
but on finding they were observed they threw it back into the
river. Mr. Bencraft, in defence, raised this point — that, under
the section of the Act, it rested with the prosecution to show that
the fish was an unclean one, and this they had failed to do. The
Act did not make it an offence to be in possession of a clean fish
at any time, but it was an offence to have an " unseasonable "
salmon during the close time. The word " unseasonable " meant
" unclean," which was the ordinary meaning of the word, and it
did not in this Act mean a salmon which was clean and caught
during a close season. The defendants' solicitor then went on

UNCLEAN AND UNSEASONABLE SALMON, i 29

to defend the case on the facts. He denied that any fish was
caught, and called a man who was present to -support this con-
tention. The prosecuting solicitor, in reply on the case, contended
that an unseasonable salmon was any salmon caught during the
close season. — The Chairman (Sir A. Chichester) said the Bench
had decided against Mr. Bencraft on the point of law. They
also believed the defendants to be guilty, and they would be
fined \os., the value of the fish, and 2/. each and costs, or in
default one month's imprisonment. A fortnight was allowed for
payment.

In this case, the magistrates very properly con-
victed the offenders, but who could have blamed
them, if, owing to the present uncertainty as to the
true interpretation of the word "unseasonable " in the
Fisheries Act, they had decided otherwise ? Year
after year I have read accounts of failures in prose-
cutions against persons for killing or having in pos-
session unseasonable salmon, but the cases I have
cited will of themselves be amply sufficient to show
how necessary it is that the wording of the Act as
regards unclean and unseasonable salmon should be
amended. By rights angling for salmon should
cease after the ist of October, but as this would be
a great hardship on such anglers as are solely de-

K

T30 THE HABITS OF THE SALMON.

pendent on fish which run up during the autumn
months for their sport, it is very unHkely that anghng
after that date will ever be put a stop to. It
would be far better that it should be made lawful for
anglers to capture gravid fish at any time during the
open season, than to allow the provisions in the
Fisheries Act against doing so to remain and not
put them in force. It is my opinion that the words
"unclean" and "unseasonable'' should be erased from
the Statute Book, and that it would simplify matters
if, instead thereof, it should be enacted that it would
be unlawful to kill or have in possession any salmon
during the annual close season ; but that the capture
c){ any salmon other than spent fish by anglers fishing
fairly with rod and line during the open season
should be allowed ; and that any person convicted of
killing gravid fish during the spring months, or at
the back end of the season, after the annual close
time for nets has commenced, by any means other
than with the rod and line, or by snatching salmon
with rod and line at any time during the open

WELL-MENDED KELTS. 131

season, should be subject to a heavy penalty. I
think, even in the case of spent fish, which invari-
ably niake sad havoc among smolts, and are nothing
more or less than fresh-water sharks, that it would
be wise to allow anglers to capture them after a cer-
tain date, say the 25th of April. If these sugges-
tions should meet with favourable consideration,
and my views adopted, magistrates would have a
very plain and easy duty to perform when offenders
are brought before theni, and there would be less
risk of the ends of justice being defeated than at
present. The consequence would be that we should
hear no more of the question touching unclean and
unseasonable salmon, of which, I feel certain, that
anglers in general, and magistrates in particular, are
heartily sick.

WELL-MENDED KELTS.

What is a well-mended kelt ? is a question 1 have
often heard asked ; but it appears that no one has as

K 2

132 THE HABITS OF THE SALMON.

yet been able to give a satisfactory answer. I do
not pretend to be able to do so myself, but I will
give my opinion for what it is worth. A well-
mended kelt is, as a Scotchman would say, "just a
well-mended kelt," or, in other words, a spent sal-
mon which has grown fat in fresh water on smolts
on their way to the sea. These fish attain such a
good condition, that even experienced salmon-fishers
are sometimes puzzled at first sight to distinguish
them from clean fish. An ordinary spent fish can
be identified at once, be it never so bright-looking
and silvery. A big head, out of all proportion to its
body, a tucked-up belly and a large and protruding
vent are outward and visible sians which cannot be
mistaken, maggots also will invariably be found in
its gills ; but as insects, apparently similar to them,
which have been proved to be marine parasites, are
occasionally seen adhering to the gills of bona
fide clean salmon, and seadice adhering to their
bodies at the same time, I should not attach much
importance to this as a test. It is, however, as I

WELL-MENDED KELTS. 133

have before mentioned, not very easy to identify a
well-mended kelt, though an experienced salmon-
fisherman does not find much difficulty in doing so.
A close examination of its vent should decide the
matter, and, in my opinion, that is a test we may all
thoroughly rely upon. The vent of a fresh, clean
fish is very small, and in some instances, I may
say, barely visible ; whereas that of a well-mended
kelt, although not so large or protruding as that
of a recently spent fish, bears unmistakable signs
that its possessor has passed a certain period
of the previous winter months on the spawning beds.
Should any one be in doubt, let him place a fish,
which by common consent is supposed to be a well-
mended kelt, alongside of a bona fide clean fish.
The well-mended fish may be silvery, and appear to
be in as good condition as the clean fish, but there
is much difference in the appearance of the two,
which, putting aside the infallible test of the vent,
must be plainly visible to the practised eye. There
is always a difference seen in the brightness of the

] 34 THE HABITS OF THE SALMON.

scales in the spent fish when compared with those
of the clean one, whilst the prismatic hues — so
beautifully developed on the back of the latter —
are entirely absent on the former fish. The question
may well be asked, How do we account forspent fish
remaining behind in fresh water, when nine-tenths
and more of the migratory body to which they belong
have orone to sea ? The best answer to that would

o

be to put another question, i.e. As a proportion of
both smolts in fresh water, and clean fish in the sea,
remain behind after the migration of their co-sevals,
is it very surprising that some of the spent fish con-
tinue longer in fresh water than others, and so
exhibit the like habit ?

How long they remain behind it is impossible to
tell. Salmon anglers often catch ugly-looking
fish towards the close of the season, which perhaps
are nothing but well-mended kelts. Those fish,
in common with the majority of others at that
season of the year, lose the condition they were in
a few months previously ; and whether they develop

WELL-MENDED KELTS. 135

ova or not, or when they return to salt water, we
have yet to ascertain. It is stated that landlockc^tl
salmon develop eggs ; it may therefore be that spent
fish which remain in fresh water during the summer
months do the same, and occupy a berth in the
spawning ground, and return to sea during the
forthcoming spring months with the fish that have
spawned with them. This problem might be solved
by marking spent fish when in the condition of well-
mended kelts ; but I really do not think that the
game would be worth the candle. It is notorious that
these fish devour a large number of small fry during
the summer months, and so when caught should be
destroyed. And here, although it may be thought
that the remarks I am about to make are foreio-n to

o

the subject on which I am just now discussing, I
trust I may be excused if I take the opportunity
now offered of making an appeal in behalf of spent
fish, which, I regret to say, are looked upon by not a
few salmon fishermen as mere vermin, and treated in
some instances with unnecessary cruelty. They are

136 THE HABITS OF THE SALMON.

often gaffed without a thought as to whether they
are clean fish or kelts, the hook is ruthlessly torn or cut
out of their mouths, or from whatever part of their
body it may be fixed in, and the poor things, bleeding
and mutilated, thrown into the river with a kick and a
flourish of adjectives. What chance, may I ask, has
a spent fish thus ill-treated of living to return to the
river as a clean fish ? It is doubtless very annoying
and trying to the patience to fish the whole day and
land only spent fish ; but the angler whose temper
is so tried should bear in mind that these very fish
which they think are such a nuisance, and often tear
their pet flies to pieces, have been clean fish the
previous year, and have run the risk like many
other salmon of being captured by him. It may be
that he has had more than one old kelt at the end
of his line, which, having gallantly fought for its life,
has yet escaped. Moreover, the very kelts anglers
so despise and ill-use, may, if tenderly handled and
returned to the river with the least possible delay,
live and become their legitimate prey as clean fish

AGE AND GROWTH OF SALMON. 137

a'tervvards. No sportsman should ever be guilty of
ill-treating spent fish, and my remarks are intended
only for those who thoughtlessly, and not with
wanton cruelty, are in the habit of so doing. It is
my belief that many spent fish which meet with even
the more considerate treatment often die, whilst the
majority of the gaffed ones incur a certain and
lingering death. The use of the gaff, therefore,
should be prohibited until the spent fish have left
the river.

AGE AND GROWTH OF SALMON.

These questions are so mixed up with one another,
that in the following remarks I make no ajDology for
treating them as one.

If I may refer to "Salmon Problems" again,
Mr. Bund wants to know " What is the age of a
40 lb. salmon.'*" The question is certainly one
which it is impossible to answer satisfactorily.

If a salmon of 40 lbs. weight were caught and

138 THE HABITS OF THE SALMON.

identified as one that had been marked when
young, we could then say with some truth what
the age of this actual fish was. But we know that
there is a great disparity as regards the rate at
which salmon grow. Some rivers, such as the
Tay, in which salmon of 40 lbs. weight are not un-
common, breed fish which have been known to
scale as high as 70 lbs., whilst very few salmon
in many rivers would attain the weight of 40 lbs., if
they lived to the age of Methuselah. The following
remarks on '' Salmon," given by Mr. Cholmondeley
Pennell, in the Badminton Library, page 141, in
reference to the smolts that were marked at the
Stormontfield ponds on their way to sea, and
captured on their return to fresh w^ater as grilse the
same year, illustrate the disparity in regard to the
rate at which the salmon of the same river grow : —

July I St ...

Weight.

. ... 3 lbs.

July 31st ...

Weight

. ... pflbs

„ 20th ...

■ ... 5l »

Aug. 4th ...

. ... 8 „

„ 2ISt ...

• ... 5 r

„ 4th .. .

. ••. 7l „

„ 3cth ... .

■ .- 1\ ,■

AGi: AND GROWTH OF SALMON. 139

There is also a well-authenticated instance of a
sniolt that was marked on its way to the sea, and
that, when taken the next year on its return from salt
water, weighed 20 lbs. It cannot for one moment
be taken for Q-i'anted that all salmon o-row at such a
rate ; but had this little fish, which was marked when
a smolt, continued to grow with the rapidity of its
grilse year, it would have attained a weight of 40 lbs.
under four years from the date of its birth. Of
course this estimate is made without taking into
consideration that the fish had spawned, in which
case it would take another year before it could put in
an appearance as a 40 lb. fish. It is very evident that
we could only in isolated cases ascertain the age
of salmon of such a heavy weight as 40 lbs., and
when we consider the infinitesimal number of
smolts that are marked, and also the very small
proportion of salmon that ever attain a weight of
40 lbs., the chances of ascertaining the age of even
marked fish of such a weight are very small
indeed, whilst to ascertain or even give an ap-

I40 THE HABITS OF THE SALMON.

proximate estimate of the age of salmon of 40 lbs.
weight in general, is almost impossible. The age,
however, of individual fish of lighter weights can
be, and has been ascertained, notably in the case
of the marked smolt which was caught the next
year, weighing 20 lbs. ; but the fact alluded to
about the disparity in the rate of growth of
the grilse mentioned by Mr. Cholmondeley Pennell,
will show that it would be impossible to form a
correct general estimate of the age even of grilse
of any given weight. We have ample proof of the
astonishing rate at which immature salmon grow,
but who can tell whether they continue to grow
so rapidly after they have reached the adult
stage. Human beings, beasts, and birds continue
to grow up to a certain age, and no longer. Is
it then unreasonable to assume that in like manner
salmon grow very little, or not at all, after they
have reached a certain stage of their existence ?
Again, as regards disparity in their growth. Is it
not probable that those fish which have access to

AGE AND GROWTH OF SALMON. 141

the same feeding-grounds, may, like human beings,
beasts, and other Hving things in creation, be dif-
ferently constituted, and that some will grow fat
in a far less time than others. It is mv belief
that this accounts for the disparity in the weight
of immature fish of the same age, which are natives
of the same river. But why salmon in some rivers
attain a far heavier average weight than they do
in other rivers is a different thing altogether, and
can only be accounted for in the way I have
before described, viz. that the feeding-grounds
in the sea, appertaining to each river, vary in
richness of food, as do pastures on land ; so that
salmon having access to the richer feeding-grounds
grow to a far heavier average weight than those
which have access only to poorer feeding-grounds.
There appears to be a difference of opinion in the
minds of high authorities as to the nature of the
food salmon get in the sea ; some say that they
feed on shrimps, others on different kinds of fishes ;
but as any kind of food is seldom found in the

142 THE HABITS OF THE SALMON.

stomach of a salmon, my opinion is that no one
knows, or ever will know, what these fish feed on in
the sea, nor do I think it is a question we need
trouble ourselves much about.

SAPROLEGNIA FERAX, COMMONLY

CALLED SALMON DISEASE.

This is a question I approach with great diffidence.
It is one which has occupied the attention of
scientists for many years, v.^ho, although they have
made certain discoveries, which may eventually
lead to satisfactory results, have not as yet been able
to explain the nature and origin of this devastating
disease, or to point out any means for its prevention
and cure.

As I have said, I am no scientist, neither do I
profess to be able to make any addition to the present
limited stock of original data on this question ; never-
theless, from what I have read, taken in conjunc-

SAPROLEGNIA FERAX, SALMON DISEASE. 143

tion with the result of personal observation and
inquiries made at the river-side, I have formed
certain opinions which I venture to offer for general
consideration.

In the first place, although it may seem to be of
minor importance, the use of the term " Salmon
disease," as an alias for " Saprolegnia," is misleading.
For it is well known that not alone salmon, but also
coarse fish and even minnows are often affected with
this disease. If it could be proved that saprolegnia
always originated with the salmon and was commu-
nicated by it to other kinds of fish, there would be
some justification for the present use of the term, but
until this proof has been supplied it would be well
to avoid what is really a mischievous misnomer.

Although it is not known when this disease first
made its appearance, all seem to agree that it is of
long standing. In my younger days, very little was
heard about it, and I think it may be assumed that
the mortality among fish affected with saprolegnia in
those days was very slight in comparison to what it

144 THE HABITS OF THE SALMON.

has been of late years. Professor Huxley, late In-
spector of Salmon Fisheries for England and Wales,
in the report for the year 1881, has given most
interesting information on the question of the so-
called salmon disease. He states that, "It was
originally brought to notice by a remarkable outbreak
in the spring and autumn of 1877 in two rivers, the
Nith and the Esk flowing into the Solway Firth,"
and he goes on to say, "It soon spread to the Eden
and other adjoining rivers. In the spring of 1879,
it was observed in the Tweed, when it rapidly became
very serious, and in 1880, when a commission was
appointed to investigate it, it had extended to the
Annan, the Eden, the Cree and the Dee, all flowing
into the Solway Firth ; to the Doon and the Ayr in
Ayrshire, to the Derwent in Cumberland, the Lune
in Lancashire, and to the Tweed. Since then the
disease has broken out in the Seont, the Ogwen,
and the Conway in North Wales, and in the Tay,
and North Esk in Scotland." There have been also
serious outbreaks of the disease in the Usk in Mon-

SAPROLEGNIA FEE AX, SALMON DISEASE. 145

mouthshire. I cannot fix the date on which it first
made its appearance in the Usk, but as this river is
not mentioned in the report of 1881, it must
presumably have been after the date of the report.

As saprolegnia is an infectious or contagious
disease, it is not surprising that it spread in the first
instance to rivers in the Solway Firth, adjoining the
Esk and the Nith, but it is difficult to account for
its appearance in Scotch rivers on the east coast, and
also in the Welsh rivers, and not in rivers intervening.
The Ribble in Lancashire, adjoining the Lune ; the
Dovey, the Towey, and Teifi on the Welsh coast,
and all the rivers from the Doon in Ayrshire round
the north coast of Scotland, as far as the North Esk,
are all intervening rivers which appear to have
been free from disease, but the most unaccountable
incident is, that meanwhile^ the Tweed was the first
river in which it made its appearance after the out-
.break in the Nith and the Esk in the Solway Firth.
No one is able to say where migratory fish go to
during their sojourn in the sea ; there is a well-

L

146 THE HABITS OF THE SALMON.

authenticated instance of a bull-trout, which was
marked in the Tweed, having been caus^ht by the
nets on the coast of Norfolk, and for aught we know
salmon may travel as far away from their native
rivers as mid-ocean. I can affirm of my own know-
ledge, that there are a certain number of diseased
fish in the sea, and as there is 2. prima facie evidence
that diseased fish belonging to one river can commu-
nicate the disease to fish belonging to other rivers,
it is just possible that some of the diseased Sol way
Firth fish came across some Tweed fish during their
rambles in the sea, which might thus account for the
sudden outbreak of saprolegnia in the Tweed ; but
the most probable theory to account for its appear-
ance in the Tweed, as well as in other rivers, is that
the seeds of saprolegnia lie dormant in the bed of
the river which, under certain unknown conditions,
germinate and produce a fungus, from which spores
get detached, one of which, according to Professor
Huxley, is sufficient to kill any salmon it comes in
contact with, provided it adheres and germinates,

SAPROLEGNIA FERAX, SALMON DISEASE. 147

boring its way through the epidermis or outer skin,
into the derma or true skin of the fish. But why the
disease should have lain dormant prior to 1877, to
break out so suddenly during that year, is a problem
that has yet to be solved.

Many theories have been propounded from time
to time to account for the origin of saprolegnia : the
most popular, and I think, the most plausible, are
two, one ascribing it to overcrowding, the other to
pollution.

It ought not to be a matter for surprise, if in any
river in which the number of fish should exceed the
natural capacity of maintenance, epidemic disease of
some kind should break out ; but unfortunately the
provisions of the Salmon Fisheries Act have not
brought about such a state of things as the over-
crowding of many of our rivers with salmon. Fish
do certainly occasionally overcrowd in some rivers
in low water below weirs and other obstructions
which they are unable to surmount, and in deep
pools and holes, when the water has got too low for

14S THE HABITS OF THE SALMON.

them to remain in their stands in the shallower parts
of a river, as they also do in the lower spawning
grounds when there is not enough water to enable
them to reach their spawning grounds higher up the
river. Salmon die in considerable numbers of some
disease in the upper reaches of the Aberdeenshire
Dee, during the summer months, which may be due
to the overcrowding of the fish in the deep holes
when the water is low. I myself saw numbers of
fish dead and dying when fishing the Dee between
Balmoral and Ballater on one occasion, during the
month of June, and my attendant informed me that
it was almost a yearly occurrence ; but, inasmuch as
we do not hear that saprolegnia has ever broken out
in the Aberdeenshire Dee, we may safely assume
that these fish were affected with some other disease.
Again, salmon are often so overcrowded in the
Galway river, Ireland, in that part immediately below
the regulating weir, that in many places the bed of
the river is literally black with them, or as the Irish
say, paved with them. They often remain in the

SAPROLEGNIA FERAX, SALMON DISEASE. 149

same position for weeks together, and yet saprolegnia
has never made its appearance in the Galway river.
On making inquiries I ascertained that a disease
somewhat similar in appearance, as described to me,
broke out on one or two occasions during summer,
when the water was very low, but no fish died from it,
and it soon disappeared.

One significant fact in connection with saprolegnia
seems to have escaped general attention. There
is neither report nor record of the occurrence of this
disease in Ireland. The cause of this exemption
should prove an interesting problem for scientists.
Independently of this, however, there is what appears
to me to be an unanswerable argument against the
theory that saprolegnia is originally due to over-
crowding, viz. that it sometimes breaks out in rivers
in which salmon are scarce, and in which it is hardly
possible under any circumstances that the pools could
be overcrowded with salmon.

Pollutions of all kinds are more or less injurious
to fish ; some contain the most deadly poison, and

I50 THE HABITS OF THE SALMON.

Others, if not discharged into rivers in excessive
quantities are, comparatively speaking, harmless.
Sewage matter, for instance, is of a nature the least
injurious, and my opinion is based on the fact that
the biggest trout, in the finest condition, are to be
found at a point directly below where sewage is
discharged into a river. Refuse from tin, chemical,
and gas works, washings from lead-mines and flax
water, are all fatal to fish life, if the dose is strong
enough ; but it appears that what is enough to kill
small and immature fish, is not enough to prove fatal
to adult salmon. Not many years ago, when visiting
the banks of the Dovey in North Wales, at Machyn-
lleth, I noticed on a certain Saturday several small
sewin (sea-trout) being carried down the river, appa-
rently dyings On my asking a local professional what
ailed these fish, he informed me that every Saturday
washings from the lead-mines situated a little distance
above, which had accumulated during the week, were
let go into the river, killing most of the smaller fish,
but producing no more apparent effect on the salmon

SAPROLEGNIA PER AX, SALMON DISEASE, 151

than that of making them sulky and refusing to take
the lly or any kind of bait. But, however fatal to
fish life poisonous pollutions may be, this does not
prove that saprolegnia is due to any of these
agencies. A gentleman well up in chemistry, with
whom I had a conversation not long ago on this
subject, on my making the suggestion that the
poisonous solutions used nowadays for dipping sheep
which are drained off the land into a river might he
a factor in the mischief, made the remark, " On
the contrary, poisonous matter that would be fatal
to fish life would in all probability destroy the fungus
with which the fish are affected;" and it is quite
possible that this theory may hold good as regards
all pollutions of a poisonous nature. As remedies,
however, such poisonous agents would be worse than
the disease.

But putting aside the effect that pollutions of all
kinds may have on fish, the question is, " Is sapro-
legnia due to any of these agencies?" The fact
that this disease sometimes appears in rivers, which

152 THE HABITS OF THE SALMON.

as far as can be ascertained, are practically unpolluted,
would justify an answer in the negative. But before
coming to such a conclusion, we may carefully study
what is stated by Professor Huxley (the only source
I know of for trustworthy information on the
question of the disease), in the report of the Inspec-
tors of Salmon Fisheries before alluded to. For
the information of any of my readers who may not
have perused this report, I quote as follows, from
pages 26 and 27 : —

" A factory for making spirits from turnips was
established near Schweidnitz,in Silesia, and the refuse
was poured into an affluent of the river Weistritz,
which runs by Schweidnitz. The result was such a
prodigious growth of Leptomitus, that the fungus
covered some 10,000 square feet at the bottom of
the stream, with a thick white layer, compared to
sheep's fleeces, choked up the pipes, and rendered
the water of the tow^n undrinkable.

"Scattered hyphse of this Leptomitus may some-
times be found among those of saprolegnia, growing

SAPROLEGNIA FERAX, SALMON DISEASE. 153

on fresh-water fishes, and the two forms are alto-
gether so similar, that conditions analogous to these
which stimulate the growth of the one may be
assumed to favour that of the other.

" Brefeld has pointed out that there is no better
medium for the culture of fungi of all sorts, than an
infusion of dung.

" Land under high cultivation undoubtedly supplies
the waters in its neighbourhood with something that
nearly answers to an infusion of dung ; and this
must be taken into account in discussing the possible
factors of salmon disease.

" Again, it is known, with respect to many of the
common moulds such as Pencillium and Mucor which
are habitually saprophytes (that is to say live on
decaying organic matter as saprolegnia does), that
they flourish in certain artificial solutions containing
salts of ammonia.

" It is quite possible, though whether the fact is so
will have to be experimentally determined, that sap-
rolegnia is capable of living under the same conditions.

154 THE HABITS OF THE SALMON.

" Fungi are also extremely sensitive to slight
differences in the acidity or aljs;alinity of water, so
that even apparently insignificant changes in this
respect may come into play as secondary conditions
of salmon disease.

" Hence, although there is not the slightest ground
for regarding ' pollutions,' whether they arise from
agricultural or manufacturing industries, as primary
causes of salmon disease, they may have a most
important secondary influence ; they may, in fact,
determine whether in any river the disease shall be
sporadic or epidemic."

Taking, therefore, the foregoing statement into
consideration, I think it may safely be assumed that
pollution of some kind, the nature of w^hich has yet
to be discovered, is indirectly, if not directly, the
cause of the disease called Saprolegnia ferax.

Attempts have been made to stamp out salmon
disease, by removing from the rivers all diseased
fish that can be laid hands on, and burying them or
otherwise destroying them. When disease breaks

SAPROLEGNIA FERAX, SALMON DISEASE. 155

out among cattle the whole herd are slaughtered
indiscriminately ; if one were suffered to live, disease
would certainly break out among the next lot it
came in contact with, and as saprolegnia is an
infectious or contagious disease, why should not the
same principle be applied to fish ? But it would be
impossible to destroy every salmon affected with
disease in any river, and therefore to endeavour to
stamp it out by such means, although helping to
lessen the chances of infecting healthy fish, must
end, as it has ended, in failure.

The only available cure at present known for
salmon disease is salt water, as diseased fish which
are fortunate enough to reach the sea, apparently
get cured, but it is not certain that the cure is
complete.

Salt water destroys the fungus adhering to the
fish, and the sore created thereby may heal over ;
still, in many cases, the disease may lie dormant in
the system of the fish, to break out again under
conditions favourable to its development. This

156 THE HABITS OF THE SALMON.

supposition leads me to consider a question I have
often asked myself, viz. Why it is that so few early
ascending salmon show any signs of being diseased ?
I occasionally hear of disease during the spring
months, but I do not remember ever to have caught
a diseased fish myself during those months. On one
occasion I caught a slightly diseased salmon in the
Usk, during the early part of June, and there had
been several caught in that river the previous April
and May, but it is generally later on that the disease
breaks out in a virulent form, the mortality being
greatest among the spawning and spent fish.

May it not be possible that a cold temperature
retards and a warm temperature accelerates the
development of saprolegnia ? The temperature of
the sea being several degrees colder during the
spring months than during the summer, may not
this account for the fact that the disease seldom
breaks out in the sea in fish in which it has lain
dormant until the summer, when the temperature of
the sea, as well as that of fresh water, has become

SAPROLEGNIA PER AX, SALMON DISEASE. 157

warmer ? This, of Itself, may be the immediate
cause of the reappearance of disease in rivers in
which it is supposed to have died out. Salmon roam
about in the sea in shoals, and should one of a shoal
happen to be diseased, it would not be surprising if
the whole shoal eventually exhibited disease after
their arrival in fresh water. I am at a loss to
account in any other way for the fact that so few
early ascending fish are affected with saprolegnia.
It would be interesting if a record were kept to show
whether or not the spring had been a mild one in
those years when signs of disease appeared amongst
the early fish.

My remarks have been so far confined to sapro-
legnia among salmon, but it should not be forgotten
that non-migratory fish, affected with the same
disease, remain behind in the rivers after all the
surviving diseased salmon have gone to sea. These
fish have no access to a salt-water bath, and the
question arises as to what becomes of them. Many
must die as well as salmon, but we do not hear oi

T58 THE HABITS OF THE SALMON.

any of them having been removed and buried along
with diseased salmon. The very existence of these
smaller vehicles of pestilence appears to have been
entirely ignored by those who are advocates for
stamping out the disease by removal. Whether they
all eventually die, or whether they recover, there is
no evidence forthcoming to show. Professor Huxley
states that there are fungi, other than that called
saprolegnia, which devour and destroy saprolegnia ;
therefore it is just possible that one or other of these
destroying fungi may have come in contact with such
diseased non-migratory fish as have survived, and
that some of them have thus got cured. The sapro-
legnia on the dead fish may have been destroyed in
like manner, and it is thus that the disease has
disappeared in rivers, to break out again on the re-
appearance of salmon, in which it may have lain
dormant during their sojourn in the sea.

The foregoing theory may appear to the reader to
be more or less untenable. Granted that it is so, it
has still the merit that it is founded to a certain

SAPROLEGNIA PERAX, SALMON DISEASE. 159

degree on fact, which cannot be said of many theories
that are propounded in these days ; and I merely
suggest it for what it is worth. For the rest, it
seems to me that, instead of spending more time and
money in fruitless efforts to stamp out saprolegnia
by such means as is proposed in one of the provisions
of the new Scotch Fisheries Act, which was to have
been brought in in the session of 1888, it would be
far wiser to wait patiently until further researches
have been made, and the results of experiments by
scientists, whose attention is still being given to the
question, have been made known.

APPENDIX A.

Page 60. — As the law at present stands, the close
time is limited in Scotland to 36 hours, viz. from
6 p.m. on Saturday to 6 a.m. on Monday. In England
to 42 hours, from 12 o'clock noon on Saturday to
6 a.m. on Monday (but this time can be extended under
certain circumstances to 48 hours). In Ireland to 48
hours. I could never understand on what grounds the
foregoing close times were so fixed. The climate of
Scotland being many degrees colder in winter and early
spring than in Ireland, early salmon make much slower
progress up Scotch rivers than they do in Irish rivers in
consequence, and if the figures had been reversed and
Scotland had been given 48 hours, and Ireland 36 hours,
there would have been some foundation in reason for the
proportion ; but a 36 hours' close time is totally inade-
quate to meet the requirements of many Scotch rivers.
My remarks do not apply to rivers in which there is no
netting above the tideway, but in rivers where nets are so
at work a 36 hours' close time is a farce, and should be
extended to at least 48 hours, with power under certain
circumstances to extend it to 60 hours, provided always
that should any extension be granted, no new netting
stations should be established above the existing ones.

M

APPENDIX B.

Since the foregoing pages were written the Local Govern-
ment Act, 1888, has come into force, conferring upon
the County Councils a certain control over our English
and Welsh fisheries. It appears that County Councils
are enabled to appoint conservators other than ex-officio
members who have power to make bye-lav/s. Herein,
I am convinced, the Legislature have made a most serious
mistake. For what does this mean ? It means simply
this : that with the exception of ex-officio members, who
will be a minority at board meetings, conservators will be
appointed who know nothing about salmon fisheries and
probably care less, and who therefore are scarcely
qualified to watch over the interests of the rivers that lie
wholly or partially within their jurisdiction. Indeed, in
the present reign of political doctrinaires, there will be no
lack of councillors who would like nothing better than to
hand over private rights of fishing to the general public.
Nor can we hope from the constitution of these councils
that sound economic considerations will prevail to save us
from the risk of interested alterations in the annual and
weekly close times, such as must bring in their train
disastrous consequences for our English and Welsh
salmon fisheries. Before the passing of the Local

APPENDIX B. 163

Government Act the then existing arrangements were far
from satisfactory, as I have endeavoured to point out ; the
new transfer of powers seems to me a move from bad to
worse. It is true that Mr. Berrington, our Chief Inspec-
tor, is the right man in the right place, and as long as he
remains at his post we may feel confident that he will do
his best to avert disaster ; but, should the Board of Trade
in a weak moment be induced to give their sanction to
some mischievous scheme recommended by any board of
conservators as constituted under the new Act, the Chief
Inspector is powerless to help us. Altogether, I think the
prospect a most gloomy one.

THE END.

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