A BOOK OF FISHING STORIES 



habits of wild fowl or woodcocks do from those of partridges. 

 Being such a vagrant, it never has the chance of the persistent, 

 continuous education in the matter of angling and tackle, 

 which some brown trout receive, and its standard in the matter 

 of flies and gut and casting is not so high or refined. On the 

 other hand, its appetite in fresh water is more capricious ; it 

 is hardly ever on the lookout for any special flies which can be 

 selected ; and the angler has to trust more to the mood of the 

 sea trout and his own knowledge of the river after a spate than 

 to any superior excellence of skill beyond the average, or extra 

 fineness of tackle. When sea trout are in the mood, they take 

 as freely as brown trout ever do, but in fresh water they are 

 liable to longer spells of indifference or obstinacy. I think 

 that, as is the case with salmon, sea trout do not enter rivers 

 till they have stored up enough fat to last them, if need be, 

 till they have spawned ; but either because they still retain the 

 power of digestion, or because they are more active and alert, 

 more easily interested in what comes before them, they cer- 

 tainly rise to the fly much better than salmon do. One which 

 I caught with a fly in a river after a spate disgorged several of 

 the common black slugs, and it is clear therefore that they 

 sometimes bring an appetite with them into fresh water. But 

 for all that, sea trout cannot either expect or need to find a 

 stock of food in clean rocky or stony fresh water, and the 

 angler must be prepared for their often behaving like creatures 

 that are quite independent of feeding. 



The rise of a sea trout is generally bold and even fierce. 

 Sometimes it takes the fly with a silent boil, or even without 



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