ON SEA TROUT 



mile of a river may be full of them when there are compara- 

 tively few above or below. Whenever there has been a spate 

 which has made the fish move, the angler has to find out 

 where they are, and if he does not get them at once in what 

 he knows to be favourite places, he had better try other parts 

 of the river at some distance. He should always remember, 

 however, that the fish may be in the pools he has already 

 tried and may come to the fly later, and that it is easy to waste 

 a whole day in running about without giving any part of the 

 river a thorough trial. There is a tendency in sea trout fishing 

 to spend time in trying to make sure where the biggest fish 

 are. It is well to be on one's guard against this, and to remain 

 where one meets with the first success, or where fish are seen. 

 When a river is high and coloured, the fish do not, as a rule, 

 show themselves much by splashing or jumping, but whenever 

 and wherever sea trout do show themselves in this way, it is 

 an invaluable help to the angler, whose first object is to fish 

 where the fish are, and whose great difficulty often is to be 

 sure that he is doing this. What a contrast this is after a 

 Hampshire chalk stream, where one comes to have an idea of 

 the number and size of the trout in each meadow, and how 

 much it adds to the wildness and hard work of fishing ! In 

 sea trout fishing there is no waiting about for the fish to come 

 on the rise, but constant fishing and walking and experiment, 

 and on good days the day does not seem long enough to find 

 out for certain where the best of the fish are. 



The sea trout is a wild, mysterious animal without a home, 

 and its habits differ as much from those of brown trout as the 



33 c 



