As we sat at breakfast Rodman asked, "How many salmon did you ever kill in a day, Kingfisher?"
Kingfisher. "I once killed thirty-three in one day: that was in the Mingan, a North Shore river, where the fish are very numerous, but small—not over ten pounds on an average. I knew a man once to kill forty-two in a day there, but he had extra strong tackle, with double and treble gut, and being a big strong fellow he used to drag them out by main force."
The Colonel. "If he had played his fish as you do here, there would not have been time in the longest day to kill forty-two. You average half an hour to a salmon, which would have taken twenty-one hours for his day's work."
Kingfisher. "True enough, but those little fellows in the Mingan can be killed in ten or fifteen minutes."
Rodman. "And what was the longest time you ever spent in killing a salmon?"
Kingfisher. "Once fishing in the Moisie, where the fish are very large, I hooked a salmon at five in the morning and lost him at six in the evening: he was on for thirteen hours, but he sulked at the bottom most of the time, and I never saw him at all."
Scribe. "Perhaps it was no fish at all."
Kingfisher. "It might have been a seal, but Sir Edmund Head, who was with me, and I myself, thought it was a very large salmon and hooked foul, so that I could not drown him. I think from his play that it was a salmon: he ran many times round the pool, but swam deep, as heavy fish are apt to do. How do you like the cooking of this salmon?"
Scribe. "I think it is perfect. The salmon have been growing better ever since we entered the Dominion, but we have reached perfection now. Is this the Tweedside method?"
Kingfisher. "It is. Put your fish in boiling water, well salted, boil a minute to a pound, and when done serve it with some of the water it was boiled in for sauce. You can't improve a fresh-caught salmon with Worcestershire or Harvey."