FOOD-SUPPLIES AND RELEVANT MATTERS 113 



lasting possibly half an hour only (and where 

 in that time the rise is certainly fast and 

 furious), and when the same weight of trout 

 may be basketed with bigger fish. The 

 average say half-pound to three-quarters of 

 a pound is better, but the sport is not so con- 

 tinuous nor so pleasing, nor at the end of a 

 day does one look back upon it as so satis- 

 factory. We know many anglers differ from 

 us, and prefer the big fish. For our own part, 

 we never consider, at least on a Scottish stream, 

 that a quarter-pound trout is too small to 

 basket, even where the average of a whole 

 basketful be found to be the half-pound (there 

 are plenty of that size in the stream). But 

 the true average of a stream ought to be con- 

 sidered at that which it produces when its best 

 average trout are feeding, and quarter-pound 

 trouts (where the average runs from, say, 

 three to the pound or the half-pound, or in 

 exceptional seasons closely approaches three- 

 quarters) ought to be basketed, but nothing 

 under that weight. 



In the river Fiddich, a tributary of Spey, 

 the trout average about five or six to the 

 pound. Knowing this, many a lovely day 



