The North Country Angler. 05 



called the Fordidge trout, from a town in Kent, 

 upon the river Stour, into which it comes at a par- 

 ticular time of the year, and stays three months. 

 The townsmen boast of it as the best of fish : 

 some of them are near the size of a salmon, and 

 in their best season cut very white : none, but 

 one, ever known to be taken in angling : stay 

 nine months in the sea, and three in the river : 

 Mr. Walton does not tell us when it comes into 

 this river, nor where, nor when it spawns. The 

 large trout that I took in Coquet in September, 

 with half a fly and a grub, had two bags of roes 

 in it, as salmon and salmon trauts, &c. have* 



There is another trout in Northumberland, 

 which the fishermen call a whitling, from twelve 

 to twenty inches long, shaped exactly like a sal- 

 mon : it is as red, and eats as well as charr : I 

 have taken many of them with the fly, in the 

 Tweed near Noreham, and some in a little river 

 called Wansbeck, between Morpeth and Ship* 

 wash bridge, with night lines, but no where else, 

 that J can remember. None of those that I 

 catched had any spawn in them^ which made me 

 think they were the salmon smelts, that had 

 been in the salt water, and were come up again 

 in the same summer^ and would be the next 

 spring what we call a gilse, or a year-old salmon. 

 None of them had any spots, either red or black, 

 as the burn trouts and salmon trouts have ; and 

 yet the fishermen of Tweed were very positive 

 that they never grew to be above twenty inches 

 long. 



The Burn trout grows fast, if it has 

 plenty of food and good. water : several expert 

 a 



