508 Sea -Trout Fishing. 



Island, charged with invading the close time for brook-trout in that 

 lovely region of sea-seeking runlets, alleged in their defense the 

 identity of the burden of their creels with the sea-trout, whose 

 comings and goings are bound by no inland law. The jury, incom- 

 petent either to acquit or convict, had the good sense to disagree. 

 And thus, until a final word of authority upon the contents of their 

 alcohol-jars comes from the cabinet of the learned, this fish is still a 

 fugitive from the jurisdiction of science. 



Careless of being classified so long as he can escape becoming a 

 specimen, the sea-trout leisurely grows during his early years to an 

 average weight of from two to two and a half pounds. They are 

 often taken of much greater size. Among a hundred fish, some seven 

 or eight will reach a weight of three pounds and upward. They 

 are often caught weighing six or eight, and many more are 

 found weighing between one and two pounds. It is a fair conclusion 

 that the usual weight of the adult fish may be fixed at two pounds 

 and a half, regarding the smaller ones as adolescents, and the larger 

 as monsters ; for the latter are dull and heavy in action. They 

 take the fly with a surge instead of a break, and drag more than 

 they leap or rush when hooked, seeming unaware of either their 

 strength or their danger until they are fairly netted. On the con- 

 trary, a two-pound fish is full of mettle and ruse — -one would say of 

 fire, in any other element. He spurns the water for the fly, tears 

 the line whirring out, zigzags, leaps and darts, and yields some 

 moments later than his heavier rival whose nose he has thrust aside 

 to snatch the bait. 



If Soyer could open his mouth on the subject, and bid his palate 

 judge — Soyer, who, alas, has gone from the active to the passive 

 state of cooking, if his epigram epitaph, " Soyez tranquille" be true, 

 or was it written for his wife ? — he would murmur, amid grateful tears 

 over the experiment, that a sea-trout is either younger than his 

 prime or past it, unless two or two and a half pounds, neither more 

 nor less, offer the judicious epicure the acme of firmness, pinky flake 

 and sapid curd. Their vagrant habits forbid our learning where the 

 greater part of their growth is gained or what its precise yearly 

 rate of increase is. The way of a ship in the sea, confessed by the 

 wise king one of the four mysteries, is a primer's lesson compared 

 with the way of a fish that wanders through sea and river both. 



