SEA TROUT— HOW CAPTURED, ITS BREEDING. 1?5 



used to be taken from April to June, and from 4 lb. to 10 lb. by the end of August. 

 In tlie Teifi they were recorded as being from i lb. to 2| lb. at the commence- 

 ment of the season. 



Along the south coast with the June floods there are usually small peal in the 

 rivers ; in fact from February to June, little "white fish," rarely exceeding six 

 inches in length, are generally present. Thus in the Dart the young are present 

 in the spring, and are taken from March 1st till May, of from 6 oz. to f lb. in 

 weight, after this time very few are captured. While in some of the Irish rivers 

 they often ascend early in the season. 



Means of capture. — These fish, when adults, are very wary, and it has been 

 observed in the Tweed and neighbouring fisheries that they will not freely enter 

 the chambers of the fixed nets, the proportion of them captured there being one 

 for every nine grilse or four salmon. But in the drifting hang-nets at the mouths 

 of the rivers or in the estuaries three or four trout are taken for every salmon, and 

 in about equal numbers with the grilse. The same is observed elsewhere, and in 

 the estuaries of South Wales sewin of from 1 lb. to 4 lb. weight are secured 

 during March and April. In Ireland a few salmon-trout are taken in the muUet 

 nets : in Belfast Bay they are captured in large quantities early in the morning, 

 if possible before daybreak, by drawing sandy bays. 



Anglers find in rivers these fish will mostly take a worm if the waters are 

 muddy, as it begins to clear a spinning bait, and when fine a fly. If hooked they 

 often display considerable cunning in their attempts to break the line with a blow 

 from the tail, or impetuously dart off, when a similar result ensues should it not 

 readily run off the reel. Stoddart observed that during the season clean sea trout 

 give more sport than salmon to the anglers ; in fact, in Scotland an hour or two's 

 white trout fishing when the fish are in the humour, is esteemed good sport, as they 

 often take a fly well,* while in some places they may be taken up to 6 or 7 lb. 

 weight; in Wales the sewin also are similarly sought after, especially of an 

 evening, with fine tackle and a small fly. But large examples, as bull trout,t 

 appear to generally refuse bait or flies, but kelts are readily hooked. The smaller 

 ones in salt water readily take a spinning bait and are often thus fished for on the 

 west coast of Scotland, while whifEers for pollack on the south coast of England 

 not nnfrequently take a sewin. 



Breeding. — The number of eggs deposited by the sea trout in moderately-sized 

 examples is about 800 for every pound weight of the parent fish,J while the size 

 of these eggs show the same variation as will be alluded to under the fresh- water 

 trout. 



The observations already made (pp. 76, 77 ante) as to how reproduction is 



* E. B. L. in The Field, October 31st, 1885, gave an mteresting account of angling for sprod, 

 which he correctly considered as identical with finnock, whitling, and herling, and to be the grilse 

 stage of Salmo trutta. Its advent in June and July in the waters of the Eden (Cumberland), 

 Nith (Dumfries), Kent (Westmoreland), and other northern rivers is looked forward to with 

 eagerness as it is too small to be captured by the legal sized nets. It is a free feeder, taking 

 worms well in a spate, or when the water is at all discoloured, even at night time, too, when the 

 streams are low and clear. At the fly it rises far more freely than the brown trout, and according 

 to the prevailing condition of the water takes anything from a sahnon fly dressed on a no. 12 or 

 large hook, to the smallest midge tied on a no. 1, and even the spinning minnow is not altogether 

 discarded in deepish pools near the bottom. It arrives in fresh water bright and active as the 

 Salmo fario is going out, and the autumn frosts appear to augment its appetite, while it is a bold, 

 hard fighter, and plucky to the backbone. It is often more diflScult to deceive than old river 

 trout, and when feeding on a particular fly the most skilful fisherman will scarcely persuade it 

 to rise to any other. "And if for a time the sea fish refuse to rise, just take off your flies and 

 put on a worm line, plenty of lengths of gut, a large hook (14's), and one or two big worms. Use 

 no sinkers ; do not let your bait touch the bottom, but fish it almost as you would the fly, with 

 length of line according to circumstances, and if there are sprods or sea trout about the place, 

 manipulating your line properly, the fault wiU be yours if you catch them not." 



t " A clean bull brout (Salmo trutta) is scarcely ever known to i take fly or bait of any 

 description ... I venture to say, I have killed more salmon with the rod than any one man ever 

 did, and yet, put them all together, I am sure I have not killed twenty clean buU trout. Of bull 

 trout kelts thousands may be killed " (Lord Howe to Yarrell). 



% Mr. Willis-Bund recorded a sewin taken in October, 1872, which weighed 3J lb., and 

 contained 544 eggs for each pound's weight of the parent. 



