Fly Fishing for Sea Trout, 87 



its size such indomitable English pluck, I was 

 about to say, but at any rate, such gallant and 

 determined courage ; in fact, the bright, graceful 

 Salmo trutta is the most game and mettlesome, if 

 not on the whole the most beautiful, fish known 

 to Europe, or probably to the world." 



My first introduction to fly-fishing was with the 

 sea trout, and it came about in this way : Forty- 

 two years ago, strolling down Princes Street, 

 Edinburgh, I came to a shop in which the goods 

 were being sold by auction. The lot then selling 

 was " a beautiful fiy rod, reel, book of flies, line, 

 and basket, all going for ten shillings." I bid six- 

 pence more and the lot was mine, and I became 

 the happy possessor of what to me at that time 

 was a white elephant. I had never fished. The 

 lot was deposited in a cupboard. I will not say 

 what I thought of myself in cooler moments for 

 having thrown away what was then to me a con- 

 siderable sum. However, some few weeks after, 

 strolling along the banks of the Eden in Fifeshire, 

 I came upon a fisherman, and after watching him 

 casting his fly and killing some fine sea trout, the 

 thought struck me : Why not try and do the same 

 with the lot in the cupboard ; it appears very easy. 

 So that evening the fishing paraphernalia were 

 rummaged out, and the next morning I made an 

 early start for the river. No one there to give 



