3i6 SALMON AND TROUT. 



of Salmo ThymalluS) contrasts agreeably with the ancient and 

 fish-like smell which clings to other finny captives. 



For the table, I should place a well-grown grayling in 

 autumn or winter above the average of river trout, while the 

 ' shetts/ or two-year-olds, are in season all the summer through, 

 and if judiciously fried are nearly equal to a smelt in flavour. 



Cotton is in a measure right when he calls him ' the deadest- 

 hearted of fishes,' making 'no great stir' on the hook. He 

 bores steadily down toward the gravel, working mostly up 

 stream, but rarely making a sudden rush or attempting to weed 

 himself. Yet even this dispraise needs some qualification. In 

 small streams I have several times encountered grayling who 

 fought for their lives with all the dash as well as the dogged- 

 ness of lusty trout, though I have never met with the like in a 

 large river. I might make a fair guess at the cause of this 

 difference, but prefer to record the simple fact. 



I have seldom fished for grayling with any lure but the 

 artificial fly. To me, indeed, the crown of all fly fishing is a 

 bright breezy day on the Teme or Lug about the middle of 

 August, when the grayling are coming on and the trout not yet 

 gone off. The sport is varied but almost continuous ; there is 

 seldom a reach to be ' skipped ' on your river-side beat. From 

 the dashing rapid haunted by trout you ascend to the steadily 

 running ford, from two to four feet deep, in which you know 

 that the grayling lie thick ' not single spies, but in battalions.' 

 At the top of this again you come on a deep pool, with foam- 

 flecked eddies where the trout reassume their sway, while on 

 the confines of these different reaches you may hook either 

 trout or grayling or both together. A brace of the former with 

 one of the latter, or vice versa, make rather an exciting compli- 

 cation. 



This delightful chapter of 'dual' captures ends with the 

 first week of September ; but there still remains a good spell of 

 grayling fishing pur et simple. They draw together more and 

 more in the quiet fords, and feed more boldly and continuously. 



