BRITISH SPORTING FISH. 33 



Although in an edible point of view inferior to 

 both its congeners, the Sahiion and Sea-Trout, 

 looked at with a sportsman's eye the Bull-Trout is a 

 noble fellow. There is a breadth of build and gene- 

 ral "strengthiness" about him which makes us feel 

 that he would be a " foeman worthy of our steel " 

 — if we could but induce him to try conclusions 

 with us ; if he would but once favourably regard 

 our feathered dainty with that cautious, cunning 

 eye of his. But to get a big clean-run Bull-Trout to 

 take the ily is a piece of luck that does not ver)- 

 often fall to the fly-fisher's lot, even in the rivers 

 where he is most plentiful. Lord Home, himself 

 a Tweed-side man, and who boasted that he had 

 killed more Salmon with the rod than any other 

 man ever did, says, that " putting them all together 

 I am certain that I have not killed twenty clean 

 Bull-Trout. Of Bull-Trout kelts thousands may be 

 killed." The season when they run up the Tweed 

 is also against the fisherman, as only the small fish 

 of a few pounds weight are to be found in the river 

 in the spring (April and May), whilst the largest 

 shoals, and those consisting of by far the biggest 

 fish, weighing from 6 to 20 lbs., do not leave the 

 sea until towards the latter end of November. 

 These November fish are in the best condition. 



" The great shoal of these Bull-Trout," says Lord 

 Home, " not taking the river till after the com- 

 mencement of close-time are in a great measure 

 lost both to the proprietor and the public." 



D 



