SALMON AND TROUT MEMORIES 



lakes and streams, I have frequently caught four or five dozen 

 trout in the intervals of deer-stalking, weighing three to the 

 pound ; while on one occasion two of us ran into three figures 

 in an afternoon's fishing. In the streams and lakes of the 

 Dovre Fjeld, in the intervals of strenuous days after reindeer 

 in the 'seventies, we thought nothing of a dozen or so of trout 

 averaging i lb. in weight, caught in an hour or two in stream 

 or lake near our hunting soeter, chiefly to vary a venison diet. 

 It was at the head of the Romsdal Valley, in the upper waters 

 of the Rauma, that I once made an excellent bag of grayling 

 mingled with a few trout, in the month of August. This is 

 the only occasion on which I have ever caught grayling out- 

 side the British Isles. The largest of them weighed about 

 I lb., and, though the sport they afforded was good, they did 

 not equal the trout either in this respect or for the larder. In 

 no other Norwegian streams, of the many that I have fished, 

 have I ever come across grayling. 



Some misguided British sportsmen, it is said, many years 

 ago introduced that poaching instrument, the wooden otter, 

 to the inhabitants of the Dovre Fjeld. The result is that 

 many of the lakes of this region have been completely spoilt 

 for ordinary trout-fishing. I shall never forget how our rein- 

 deer-stalking party once half filled our boat with splendid lake 

 trout running up to 3 lb., and over, in weight one Sunday 

 afternoon, by means of a long cross-line and an otter, and with 

 what a guilty conscience I returned with the spoils to camp, 

 even though there was good use for them. 



I will now bring my fishing recollections to a close with 



113 H 



