The route I had chosen involved great loss of time, the weekly sailing of the Glencoe on the south coast being a great drawback. If one steamer be missed a week is lost.
I might just as well have gone from Port aux Basques to Belleoram by steamer and returned from Belleoram to Port aux Basques, thus avoiding the tiresome railway journey of twenty-nine hours, but I had to outfit at St. John's and wished also to see the scenery of the island.
The heads I got did not make up for a somewhat expensive trip, but, on the other hand, I had seen a great deal of very beautiful country in fair comfort and enjoyed some excellent trout fishing which I would not have got had I gone in from the railway. I had the Mount Sylvester country all to myself and it was simply bad luck that I saw no good heads. I can honestly say, however, that I never enjoyed a hunting trip more, and only wish I could look forward to another visit to the island, when with my present experiences I could, I think, make better arrangements to avoid loss of time in reaching the hunting grounds.
The game laws of Newfoundland are sufficiently liberal. A licence of $50 (£10) gives the visitor the right to shoot three caribou stags. The true sportsman should be content with this limit and will carefully pick his heads.
The Newfoundlander, whether white man or Indian, is not charged the $50. The Indian certainly shoots what he wants and is not particular about a close time. Accustomed as he has been from time immemorial to range the island and shoot for food and clothing, it is difficult to get him to understand the principle underlying game laws, and to accept a game limit to which he has never been accustomed and the necessity for which he does not understand.
When the fishing laws come to be considered there seems to me great room for improvement. The Newfoundland Government prides itself on all the rivers being open to every one. For the first time, in 1910, a fishing licence of $10 was imposed on the visitor, and this gave him the right to fish any river in the island. The practical result is, that many of the best-known rivers, such as the Codroy and Harry's Brook, are overfished.
All the rivers on the west coast are very accessible to the angler from the United States, and suffer most from overcrowding. I met an English angler who had been fishing the Codroy; he said it was one continual struggle as to who would get on to the water first. I heard the same story at the south-east arm, Placentia. The Government absolutely refuses to lease a river or even to limit the number of rods, and I think this policy is entirely wrong.
In practice one may decide on a season in Newfoundland. Having carefully selected a somewhat inaccessible river and made all one's arrangements for camping out, it would certainly be disappointing on arrival to find two or three other parties settled on the river and one's trip spoiled, yet this is quite possible. I was told in St. John's, no Government would dare to change the existing law and the policy of the open door in fishing. This I cannot understand, for what has been done in Canada, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia can surely be done in Newfoundland.
The application of the law is carried to the extreme. An official of the Fishery Board told me of a case where an American offered a liberal rent for a remote river on the Labrador Coast. There was but one settler on the river and the American guaranteed that he would take him into his service. He proposed to build a fishing lodge and so put capital into the country. His application was refused.
The Government professes to be most anxious to encourage the tourist and sportsman to visit the island, but I venture to think they are not going the right way about it, at least as regards the angler.