The first thing is to prepare the bait. The old wooden fish-hook is now amongst the things that were, its place having been supplied by its civilised Birmingham brother, bartered by the Indians from the Hudson’s Bay Company. The fishing line is either made of native hemp, or the inside bark of the cypress-tree spun into cord. The bait is a long strip cut from the underside of a trout, at one end of which the point of the hook is inserted; the strip being then wound tightly and evenly round the hook, and up the line about three inches, the silvery side outermost. It is then firmly whipped over with white horsehair, a pebble slung on as a sinker, and the deception is complete. Five or six long barbed spears are stowed away in the canoe, the line coiled carefully in the bow, and the baited hook laid on it. Two wily redskins man this frail bark, the paddler squatting on his heels in the stern, the line-man standing in the bow.
A few skilful turns of the paddle sends the canoe to the mudbank on which King Sturgeon is dozing, and awaiting his matin or vesper meal. The dainty-looking morsel, bearing all the external semblance to a fish (but, like the Trojan horse, pregnant with mischief), sinks noiselessly and slowly to the bottom; the canoe drifts with the current, and in this manner the bait is towed along; it nears the sturgeon’s nose, and, being far too tempting to be refused, the great pendulous lips close upon it; but ere it reaches the gullet, a sharp twitch of the line buries the hook in the tenacious gristle. At once discovering he has been miserably done, anger and obstinate resistance are in the ascendant; so he comes to the surface with a rush and a splash.
The paddler now exerts all his skill to keep a slack line, for the hooked fish would otherwise inevitably upset the canoe; the bowman, with the line in one hand and a spear poised in the other, quietly bides his time; then he hurls the spear into the sturgeon’s armour-clad back; down darts the fish, but soon returns to the surface, when in goes another spear, and so on again and again, until, towed ashore, it is dragged out of the water with a powerful gaff-hook. Large numbers besides such as are thus speared are netted in passing through the narrow rock-channels.
On the Fraser river sturgeon-spearing is the most exciting sport imaginable. Hooking, playing, and landing a noble salmon is an achievement every fisherman is truly proud of; but I unhesitatingly assert that to spear and land a sturgeon five or six hundred pounds in weight, with only a frail canoe, which the slightest inequality of balance will upset in an instant, requires a degree of skill, courage, and dexterity that only a lifetime’s practice can bestow.
I have already said the Fraser has no falls below Fort Hope, but a great many stiff rapids; below these rapids it widens out into long slowly-running shallows, generally speaking having large sand and gravel-banks—bars, as the miners call them, and on these bars the Indians live during the fishing-season. The time for fishing being generally soon after sunrise, four canoes, each manned by two Indians, usually start for sturgeon-capture; the paddler, who squats in the stern, looks in the direction in which the canoe is to go, not, as we sit in rowing, with our backs to the bow, but facing it; he is always chosen for his greater strength, tact, and dexterity with the paddle, for on his skill depends in a great degree the safety and success of the spearman.
The spearman stands in the bow, armed with a most formidable spear—the handle,[4] from seventy to eighty feet long, is made of white pine wood; fitted on the spear-haft is a barbed point, in shape very much like a shuttlecock, supposing each feather represented by a piece of bone, thickly barbed, and very sharp at the end. This is so contrived that it can be easily detached from the long handle by a sharp dexterous jerk. To this barbed contrivance a long line is made fast, which is carefully coiled away close to the spearman, like a harpoon-line in a whale-boat.
STURGEON-SPEARING ON THE FRASER.
The four canoes, alike equipped, are paddled into the centre of the stream, and side by side drift slowly down with the current, each spearman carefully feeling along the bottom with his spear, constant practice having taught the crafty savages to know a sturgeon’s back when the spear comes in contact with it. The spear-head touches the drowsy fish—a sharp plunge, and the redskin sends the notched points, through armour and cartilage, deep into the leather-like muscles. A skilful jerk frees the long handle from the barbed end, which remains inextricably fixed in the fish; the handle is thrown aside, the line seized, and the struggle begins.
The first impulse is to resist this objectionable intrusion, so the angry sturgeon comes up to see what it all means: this curiosity is generally repaid by having a second spear sent crashing into him. He then takes a header, seeking safety in flight, and the real excitement commences. With might and main the bowman plies the paddles, and the spearman pays out line, the canoe flying through the water. The slightest tangle, the least hitch, and over it goes; it becomes, in fact, a sheer trial of paddle versus fin. Twist and turn as the sturgeon may, all the canoes are with him: he flings himself out of the water, dashes through it, under it, and skims along the surface; but all is vain—the canoes and their dusky oarsmen follow all his efforts to escape as a cat follows a mouse.