Fish stories are always in order in a fishing country; and when that country is the best the world has to offer, the stories may properly be of fair proportions.
On the Nepisiguit River a 45-pound salmon has been known to leap from the water into a canoe. This reverses the usual practice of suicides; and perhaps it will be well to explain that as a fish has to jump out of water to commit felo-de-se, the salmon in question took the easiest course.
Squirrels in swimming across a river are sometimes swallowed by trout. As trout have often been caught weighing six pounds, this story seems quite credible:
On a trouting excursion in this region so many fish were caught that the fishermen became completely exhausted through the incessant labor of hauling in the fish. On the homeward journey they reached a place where large trout poked their heads out of the water, but the fishermen had not enough energy left to throw a line.
In Camp
In good fishing waters, strange as it may seem, two trout have been caught on the same hook with one cast of the line.
It may be well to remark that in Quebec and New Brunswick the system of private leases of fishing privileges prevails. That is to say, the fishing rights on a stream are either owned by those who have bought land with river frontages, or they are leased outright by the Government to fishing clubs of wealthy sportsmen who can afford to have the river patrolled by fishery guards. A privilege may include the right to cast a line in one pool, in a stretch of water a mile or two in length, or over the course of the river for a distance of fifty or even a hundred miles.
Club-houses are built at the principal spots where the best fishing may be had, and there wealthy fishermen make their stay in comfortable quarters during the salmon season. At Matapedia, Campbellton, etc., may be seen whole truck loads of large boxes some four feet long, each box having one or more fine salmon packed in snow for transportation to friends of the anglers at New York and other distant points.