6o ANGLING 



This exodus to the salt water is somewhere about the month of 

 May, a little earlier or a little later, according to the character 

 of the river and the condition of the water. In the autumn of 

 the same year these fish return as grilse, which is the name 

 applied to fish which have reached something like maturity, yet 

 have never propagated their species. Grilse run up to the 

 spawning-grounds in independent batches, or in company with 

 salmon which have passed through the experience before ; they 

 shed their spawn in the upper waters, and return to sea in the 

 spring as kelts or salmon out of condition from the exhaustion 

 of spawning. They speedily recover, and are perfect salmon. 

 Blakey erroneously speaks of the grilse as salmon-peal. It is 

 only in Ireland that the word " peal " designates the grilse of the 

 salmon. In England it means sea-trout. Honestly dogmatic 

 opinions of a peculiar character are entertained by some gillies 

 and practical fishermen as to these changes and differences ; they 

 insist that the grilse is a distinct species, which never becomes a 

 salmon ; others will not even allow that the parr or smolt 

 becomes a salmon. These are ancient prejudices which are fast 

 dying out. The account which Blakey gives of a salmon manu- 

 factory on the Tay remains as an interesting record of what may 

 be termed pioneer efforts to stock depleted waters with salmon 

 artificially hatched. Salmon and trout hatcheries are quite 

 common in our day. 



When he comes to the question of sport, our author is on firm 

 foundation again, and writes at first hand. Many a, modern 

 angler may study his instructions with pleasure and profit, and 

 the high-class sportsmen who insist that the noble salmon should 

 never be caught with anything more commonplace than an 

 artificial fly will applaud the standard which Blakey sets up. 

 In this, as in every other branch of fishing with which he deals, 

 he is a genuine sportsman. There are some readers to-day 

 who may wince at the sentence in which the adoption of any 

 other bait or artifice, other than the artificial fly, for so grand a 

 fish, is characterised as frivolous and debasing, alike unworthy of 

 the angler's reputation and the nature and character of the fish. 

 It is a question, indeed, whether some modern salmon-anglers do 

 not carry their choice of lures for the king of fish considerably 

 beyond what the salmon-anglers of the past would deem orthodox. 



Prawns, minnows, and worms are more freely used even by 

 salmon-anglers who have rivers of their own, than most people 

 imagine. This is, however, a free country ; there is considerable 

 latitude in these days for everything and everybody ; and it is, 

 without question, to be said on behalf of those who adopt these 

 multifarious methods of enticing the salmon into the bag, that 

 there are rivers where it is but too true that to fish for salmon 

 with an artificial fly only is waste of time. The fish will or do 

 not rise to such dainty lures, and if they are to be taken at all it 

 must be with the type of baits which Blakey regarded with an 

 unfavourable eye. Most of the patterns of salmon-flies given by 



