136 MOSTLY ABOUT TROUT 



There were other days, successful and un- 

 successful, in freshwater lochs and in the sea 

 voes ; days of storm and wind and days of 

 sunshine, but that was the climax : to describe 

 the others would be but tame. On several 

 days more sea-trout were caught, but much 

 more easily, once eight in half an hour ; but 

 that one big fish on the finest gut on a bright 

 sunny day was by far my best experience of 

 sea-trout in the Shetlands. Every scream of 

 the reel, every throb of the butt, remains fixed 

 in my memory. It happened in '98, nearly 

 twenty-three years ago. How time passes ! The 

 usual " tag " on that subject is old Horace's : 



Tempora mutantur, nos et mutamur in illis. 



That the times have changed for the fisherman 

 is true. Trout are more fished for, and more 

 wary, which is all to the good for the older 

 generation of fly-fishers, providing for them, 

 as it does, new difficulties and new interests. 

 But have we changed much ? I scarcely think 

 so. Not, at all events, in the excitement and 

 delight of a struggle with a Shetland sea-trout. 

 Perhaps in one way, in the competitive spirit. 

 I retain a memory of satisfaction that my four 

 and a half-pounder on the occasion described 

 was the only one on the big dishes put out for 



