THE SEA-TROUT 15 



can catch them as quickly as you can re-bait your hook, 

 while shoal bass are equally obliging. Recently I stood 

 on a pier and watched a score of rodsters monotonously 

 hauling up small bass. A friend of mine, when he had 

 reached a hundred and fifty fish, ceased operations as he 

 said that he was tired of the fun. 



The trouble with shoal sea-trout, however, is that you 

 cannot be sure that they have not left your favourite 

 stretch. I have known innumerable cases of the fish 

 running in a night through what are rightly considered 

 to be splendid holding pools and next day not a fish has 

 rewarded the labours of anglers working those pools, 

 while, at the same time, three or four miles farther 

 upstream, excellent results have been achieved. 



The larger sea-trout are not so erratic as the smaller 

 fish, and to connect with a weighty one is not beyond the 

 limits of possibilities, even if the youngsters have for- 

 saken the lengths which usually appeal to them. 



An outstanding example of how these big sea-trout 

 remain in the same stretch of water for a long period 

 came to my notice several years ago. In a salt-marsh 

 a small rhine is cut right across for drainage purposes, 

 and the water-way is about two feet wide and a foot 

 deep. In the summer months this channel is nearly 

 concealed by overhanging rank growth, and the end 

 distant from the river is choked by cress and other water- 

 loving vegetation. 



One evening in early September my wife and I were 

 strolling over the land, and while my companion was 

 picking a bunch of wild flowers, I, obeying the irresistible 

 urge enjoyed peculiarly by wielders of the rod, peered 

 in to the still water, hoping thereby to discern a fish, 

 even if only a minnow. Suddenly I stood in amazement 

 and could scarcely believe my eyes for there, with their 

 heads little more than a foot from the barrier of tangled 



