A BOOK OF FISHING STORIES 



could have gone only a little way up in a flood, and no doubt 

 returned to the sea immediately after having spawned. 



We were told that there were no true salmon in Shetland, 

 but we certainly caught many fish from three pounds to six 

 pounds, which were exactly like grilse, and would have been 

 called grilse without hesitation anywhere else. They were 

 quite distinct from the sea trout, though the latter overlapped 

 the grilse in size, and our largest sea trout were heavier than 

 our smallest grilse. Some of the large fish, which were jump- 

 ing in the voes, were apparently salmon, and perhaps we might 

 have hooked some of them, if we had used some large bait 

 instead of flies, but we were always having some success with 

 flies, expecting still more, and experimenting with flies of 

 different kinds, and so the time passed away. In spite of the 

 forked tail and other distinctions, I cannot say that I always 

 find it quite easy to be sure whether a fish which I have landed 

 is a large grilse or a small salmon ; but the difference between 

 sea trout and grilse seems to me clear enough, for the one is 

 unmistakably a trout, and the other is not. 



Migratory Salmonidce are generally divided into three species 

 — Salmo solar, Salmo eriox, and Salmo trutta. Of Salmo eriox, 

 the bull trout, I have had no experience. It has the reputation 

 of being a powerful fish, but a very bad riser, and in rivers 

 such as the Coquet of being almost useless for angling pur- 

 poses. As a kelt it takes a fly well enough in the spring. 

 Salmo trutta, the salmon trout, is, I believe, the best sporting 

 fish for its size in the world. There seem to me to be two dis- 

 tinct classes of Salmo trutta. There is the mature fish, which 



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