66 SEVERE CONTEST. 



when the males are very plentiful ; but the females 

 are scarce till about the beginning or middle of No- 

 vember. With Salmon it is the reverse, as their females 

 leave the sea before the males. The Bull Trout is also 

 more regular in his habits than the Salmon, for the fish- 

 ermen can calculate almost to a day when the large 

 black male Trouts will leave the sea. The foul fish rise 

 eagerly at the fly, but the clean ones by no means so. 

 They Aveigh from two to twenty-four pounds, and occa- 

 oasionally, I presume, but very rarely indeed, more. 

 The largest I ever heard of was taken in the Hallow - 

 stell fishing water at the mouth of the Tweed, in April, 

 1840, and weighed twenty-three pounds and a half. 



The heaviest Bull Trout I ever encountered myself 

 weighed sixteen pounds, and I had a long and severe 

 contest with his majesty. He was a clean fish, and I 

 hooked him in a cast in Mertoun Water called the 

 Willow Bush, not in the mouth, but in the dorsal fin. 

 Brethren of the craft, guess what sore work I had with 

 him ! He went here and there with apparent comfort 

 and ease to his own person, but not to mine. I really did 

 not know what to make of him. There never was such 

 a hector. I cannot say exactly how long I had him on 

 the hook ; it seemed a week at least. At length John 

 Haliburton, who was then my fisherman, waded into 

 the river up to his middle, and cleiked him whilst 

 he was hanging in the stream, and before he was half 

 beat. 



Besides the three species I have mentioned, I have 

 sometimes, though very rarely, caught a fish very si- 

 milar in shape to the Grey or Bull Trout, but much 



