THE SALMON TROUT. 141 



pool just below some rapid fall, you will often take a great many, 

 either with an artificial fly or by baiting with preserved salmon 

 spawn, which these fish are remarkably eager after. They will 

 also bite at a worm or a gentle, and sometimes will run a minnow, 

 though they do not take this bait so freely as a trout will. 



For the table few fish stand in higher esteem than the salmon 

 trout, being inferior only to the salmon : some indeed give it the 

 preference. Like the salmon it loses its beautiful pink tint after 

 it has been for some time in the fresh water, being always in the 

 best condition upon its first arrival from the sea. After spawning 

 the pink tint entirely vanishes which does not reappear again till 

 the fish has had the benefit of a change of water in the sea. 



Salmon smolts, and also parrs may be taken either with the 

 worm or the fly, the former however seem to prefer a fly, and the 

 latter a worm : indeed I have often caught a parr with a minnow 

 when trolling for trout : and as for worms they never reject one 

 on account of its size, and will bite again and again if missed, 

 though actually pulled above water. In fact they sometimes hold 

 on so tenaciously to the worm, that their teeth adhering to them 

 they are thrown on shore without being hooked. They always 

 resort to the swift gravelly scowers, and are rarely met with 

 in the deep or quiet pools, Salmon smolts are found in all 

 parts of the stream, and will take any small fly. The two 

 best are a small red palmer ribbed with gold twist, and a 

 little blue palmer with a dun body; but there are few small 

 flies that they will not readily take. They rise best how- 

 ever just before sunset. Their mode of feeding seems to be 

 influenced in a great measure by the locality they for the 

 time being inhabit. When a lad I was in the habit of fish- 

 ing for them in a large open pond, and here I never could 

 prevail on one to take any bait but a fly, though in the 

 streams that communicate with it they would take a worm 

 very freely; so that I often caught three or four, and in one 

 instance five and twenty out of the same pool, all which pools being 

 in a small brook were all of very limited extent. A small 

 worm is best adapted to these fish, and they seem to prefer 

 the brandling to any other, though I have known them bite very 

 eagerly at the small garden worm. 



They will also take gentles, and one of these attached to the 

 tail of an artificial fly when the weather is bright will generally 



