246 A BOOK ON ANGLING 



England one is licensed and in Ireland the other, but they are 

 little better than poaching, and the legislature is much to 

 blame for not utterly prohibiting them under severe penalties, 

 as they are hardly inferior to downright leistering in their 

 destructiveness. 



SEA TROUT FISHING 



Sea trout are of two species : the white trout of Ireland, 

 salmon trout or Salmo trutta of England and science, and the 

 grey trout or bull trout of Tweed, Coquet, and elsewhere, or 

 Salmo eriox. The bull trout, when it reaches any size, is a 

 bad riser, save when in the condition of a kelt, at which time 

 starvation and emaciation makes him greedy enough. They 

 say there is a time of year, according to tradition, when the 

 bull trout is a very welcome accessory to the table. I will not 

 dispute this, but rest contented by saying that I have not yet 

 discovered the exact day. Yet it is held in high estimation 

 by the French, who pay as much for it as they do for salmon ;* 

 but as they eat kelts with a relish and call them salmon, one 

 need not be surprised at anything they do in that way. Bull 

 trout are sometimes caught with trout flies, and now and then 

 by minnow and worm. There is a disputed point as regards 

 the bull trout, whether or no he is the veritable " whitling " 

 of the Border when in his grilse state. This I cannot of course 

 decide beyond question, but I am quite sure that I have in 

 the same river caught both the grilse bull trout, and the ordin- 

 ary white or salmon trout, each of about a pound or a pound 

 and a half in weight, and that the natives called them both 

 wliitling, so which is really entitled to the name I do not 

 pretend to say. The flies for both these fish on the Border 

 rivers are the same, and are called whitling flies : they are 

 similar to the ordinary sea-trout and white trout flies used 

 elsewhere. As to the style of fishing there is nothing peculiar 

 or decided in it, for one almost as often catches sea trout with 

 the common trout fly, when trouting, as with the small-sized 

 salmon fly when salmon fishing, or with both as the regular 

 orthodox sea-trout fly. 



The white trout is one of the gamest fish that swim. Like 

 a champion of the light-weights, he is all activity : when 

 hooked he is here, there, and everywhere, now up, now down, 



* And so do the English, for that matter ; for I have often seen large 

 bull trout sold in the London shops for prime Scotch salmon, F. F. 



