24 The North Country Angler. 



spots : 1 have taken some of them, the flesh like 

 bees' wax, and well tasted. I once took a very 

 large one of this sort in Coquet, above Rothbury. 

 I had laid a line at the foot of a long deep pool \ 

 and in the morning had more trouts than hooks. 

 One of these great reddish trouts had swallowed 

 a little one, of about eight inches, that had taken 

 a minnow, with its head downwards, as they all 

 generally do. I observed, that the other trouts, 

 three of which were twenty inches, the other 

 three about sixteen, were very lively and brisk 

 upon the line, but this great one came out like 

 a log of wood ; but when he had lain a while 

 upon the sand, he disgorged the trout, and then 

 leaped about as cleverly as the rest. He was 

 twenty-eight inches long, a very thick fish, and 

 when he was boiled, cut yellow, but was very well 

 tasted; it was in the middle of April. This I 

 think is the bull-trout, mentioned by several 

 authors, as an extraordinary fish, both in size and 

 goodness, and no where to be seen but in 

 Northumberland. 



Mr. Walton says, this trout is of a much greater 

 length and bigness than any in the Southern 

 parts. I catched a much larger trout than this 

 in September, in the same river, near Brenkburn 

 Abbey, that was very near a yard long ; but 

 what I took most notice of, was the bright spots 

 upon the line down the middle of its sides ; by 

 which it appeared to me to be an over-grown 

 burn trout ; and neither a salmon nor salmon- 

 trout, nor the same with those two that I thought 

 were the bull-trout. 



Mr. Walton mentions another trout^ that is 



