142 FISH CULTURE. 



201b. ferox is no light triumph and no easy achieve- 

 ment — a 301b. salmon is a much easier conquest. 

 But they rarely take anything but a trolling bait, and 

 that at long and weary intervals, seldom, indeed, 

 risin^ to a fly (though I have known them taken 

 with it). Oh, that trolling for the mythic ferox, 

 which has fabled itself to my mind as a species of 

 fresh-water kraken ! How many long hours have 

 I spent at it bootlessly! As a destroyer of fish of 

 his own kind he is scarcely, if at all, less destructive 

 than the pike, though perhaps a more desirable fish. 

 These very big trout are very apt to make wastes of 

 the water around them. In the management of a 

 lake, the most useful size, if possible, to permit the 

 common trout to arrive at, is about 41bs. or 51bs. ; 

 and with plenty of proper food in lakes, they should 

 not be long in arriving at that weight. After this 

 they grow more slowly; they feed upon their own 

 species more largely ; and it is a question whether 

 they are then really worth their keep. 



I treat this point here solely in a commercial view. 

 If I look at it as a sportsman, I should say that I 

 prefer a fair chance among a good show of three and 

 four-pounders, to that very rare one of the twelve or 

 twenty-pounder — one soon wearies of always sitting 

 in a boat, with a couple of rods stuck hopelessly 



