CLOSE TIMES FOR TROUT 149 



they get amongst their natural salt or 

 brackish feeding -grounds. But we are 

 assured that oftentimes when so - called 

 sportsmen have returned from this tidal 

 fishing with 'heavy record baskets of sea- 

 trout/ let us say at the mouth of Dee or 

 Ythan, and are reported by the fishing jour- 

 nals from the reports from fishing quarters, 

 that often these fish were ' thrown out to the 

 pigs' as unfit for human food, only a few 

 picked out as being 'really in wonderful 

 condition ' and some people will always be 

 found to ' pick out the best bits of them ' 

 and praise them ! We have seen the same 

 thing often. We have shaken the lanky 

 things off our salmon-hooks when fishing 

 for salmon in a well-known Ross-shire river, 

 when we could have filled our panniers twice 

 over. And the same day we have seen an 

 angler, who knew no better, produce a tray- 

 ful of sea-trout kelts, and, in his plenitude 

 of pride and generosity, offer us 'a dish 

 or two/ One thing certain, if he eat them 

 all himself, I guess he'd be sick! Never- 

 theless, our laws permit this wholesale 

 slaughter of fish unfit for food. 



