SEA-TROUT FISHING 



By the RIGHT HON. SIR HERBERT MAXWELL, BART. 



SEA-TROUT, in their different varieties, occupy an intermediate 

 position, both in ichthyology and in sport, between the salmon 

 and the freshwater -trout. Dr Gunther distinguished four dis- 

 tinct species of migratory trout in British waters, namely, Salmo 

 trutta, the true salmon-trout; S. cambricus, the sewin of Welsh 

 rivers, also found in English and Irish waters; S. brachypoma, 

 which is the sea -trout of the Tweed and the bull-trout of the Forth; and 

 S. gallivensis, an estuarine form from the west of Ireland. Most natural- 

 ists agree now with Mr Boulenger in regarding all these forms as racial 

 varieties of a single true species — Salmo trutta, Scandinavian ichthyo- 

 logists have simplified the classification still further by pronouncing 

 Atlantic -salmon, sea -trout and freshwater -trout in all their forms to be 

 no more than varieties, more or less permanent, of a single species. 

 This view receives support from the behaviour of English brook-trout 

 introduced into the rivers of New Zealand, where they have grown to 

 enormous weight and have acquired the seagoing habit together with the 

 lustrous silver uniform of true salmon. 



The classification of our migratory Salmonidce remains a difficult pro- 

 blem for ichthyologists, so constant is the tendency of the different races 

 of this very plastic clan to merge into each other. For British anglers, 

 however, it resolves itself into an easy, if unscientific, arrangement in 

 three main classes — salmon, sea-trout and bull-trout. The last-named, 

 formerly classed as Salmo eriox and later as S. cambricus, may be held, 

 though tentatively, to include the bull-trout of English, Irish and Scot- 

 tish rivers, the Tweed excepted, for in that fair stream what men call 

 bull-trout elsewhere are known as sea -trout, and the fish usually recog- 

 nized as sea -trout or salmon-trout are termed whitlings. A variety 

 known in the Tay as " salmon bull-trout " grows to great weights. Mr 

 Malloch once sent me a photograph of one weighing 42 lb. He considers 

 these fish to be true salmon {S. salar) whereof the appearance has been 

 altered by the process of spawning.* Their distinctive marks consist of a 



*" All the grille kelts, small ipriii|-fish kelti, and, in fact, all the kelti which we marked, were so-called bull- 

 trout when they returned a^ain. I have watched them carefully in our fith-houae, and in July, 1907, there were 19 per 

 cent of them," (Malloch's Salmon, Sta-trout, etc., p. 155.) 



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