The Grayling Family 199 



the hold you have on him, for the grayling tries 

 the hold of the hook in every possible way, and 

 from every possible point of that hold. To my 

 mind a grayling is much more difficult to 

 land than a trout, and the more I fish for 

 grayling the more convinced I am of his game- 

 ness and sporting qualities. Certainly there are 

 a great many more grayling lost after being 

 hooked than trout, and this is accounted for prin- 

 cipally not so much from the reputed tenderness 

 of the mouth as from the fact of the fish not 

 being so firmly hooked as the trout usually is. 

 " The ideas of grayling not heading up-stream 

 and of being deleterious to the trout have been 

 perpetuated by author after author, just copying 

 one another without really ascertaining the facts. 

 . . . As regards the advisability of introducing 

 grayling into a trout stream, that depends en- 

 tirely upon the nature of the river. As far as 

 my experience and observation go, grayling only 

 become detrimental to the trout in that, being 

 active and voracious feeders, they consume the 

 food that otherwise would have belonged to and 

 been partaken of by the trout. It is certain that 

 these fish live together in general amity. The 

 grayling is but seldom a fish eater, and therefore 



