TROLLING FOR TROUT 13 



very capricious in taking the bait, and some days not one would 

 move, although the wind and weather all seemed favourable ; 

 while on other days every float had a fish to it. Again, the fish 

 would be quiet for some time, and then suddenly a simultaneous 

 impulse seemed to seize them, and they would seize the baits 

 as quickly as we could wish, for the space of an hour or so. 



The trout seldom take a dead bait during the daytime, but 

 we often caught them on hooks left in the water all night. In 

 all the Highland lakes on which I have fished in this way, large 

 eels would sometimes take the hook, and often break my lines. 

 It is frequently said that putting pike into a lake would destroy 

 the trout-fishing ; but I have invariably found that in all lakes 

 of a considerable size, where the pike were plenty, the trout 

 have improved very much in size and quality, and not dimin- 

 ished even in numbers to any great extent. In fact, the thing 

 to be complained of in most Highland lakes is, that the trout 

 are too numerous, and consequently of a small size and inferior 

 quality. The only way to kill the larger trout is by trolling. 

 In Loch Awe and several other lakes I have seen this kind of 

 fishing succeed well. If the sportsman is skilful, he is sure of 

 taking finer trout in this way than he would ever do when fly- 

 fishing. In trolling there are two or three rules which should 

 be carefully observed : — Choose the roughest wind that your 

 boat can live in ; fish with a good-sized bait, not much less 

 than a herring, and do not commence your trolling until after 

 two o'clock in the afternoon, by which time the large fish seem 

 to have digested their last night's supper and to be again on 

 the move. You may pass over the heads of hundreds of larg;e 

 trout when they are lying at rest and not hungry, and you will 

 not catch one ; but as soon as they begin to feed, a fish, 

 although he may have half-a-dozen small trout in his stomach, 

 will still run at your bait. The weight of-sinkers on your line, 

 and the depth at which you fish, must of course depend on the 

 depth of water in the lake. A patient fisherman should find 

 out how deep every reach and bay of the lake is before he 

 begins to troll. The labour of a day spent in taking soundings 

 is well repaid. The strength and activity of the large loch 

 trout is immense, and he will run out your whole reel-line if 

 allowed to do so Sometimes he will go down perpendicularly 

 to the bottom, where he remains sulky or attempts to rub off 



