140 



THE SEA-TROUT 



with worm bait in Loch Lomond — a very unusual capture. In " The 

 Glasgow Herald " angling report of 23rd May, 1913, it was noted that 

 " a fine sea-trout weighing 2^ lb. was caught in the Border Esk," and 

 that " This is the second sea-trout landed with the rod. The previous 

 one weighed 2f lb. The opening catches of sea-trout usually consist 

 of fish of i^ lb. or 1-^ lb." A Tweed report bears that on 15th February 

 1915, "a spring sea-trout scaling 2 lb." was caught at Carham; on 

 4th March in the same year, " a sea-trout, i^ lb.," was reported from the 

 Logierait Hotel water on the Tay; while from the Beauly it was 

 reported in 19 15 that on 8th March " on the tidal waters an angler had 

 4 sea-trout," on loth March, 26 sea-trout, and on 12th March, 2 sea- 

 trout, but the weights of these were not reported, although one is aware 

 that these early fish in the Beauly are of a small class. 



Whatever else these small sea-trout may be they cannot be those 

 whitling which ran the previous summer and descended in spring ready 

 now to run again. Nor is it likely that they are mature fish which, 

 having spawned in the preceding autumn and descended as kelts after 

 January, are now ready to ascend again. They can in fact be nothing 

 else than either, first, members of the detachment of whitling which did 

 not run in the previous year now grown to maturity, or second, possibly 

 fish which have spent two or more years in the sea without spawning. 



Mr. Malloch gives an oddly confused account of the fish at the 

 stage which we are considering. "After the whitling goes to sea," he 

 writes, " it remains there for three or four months, and comes up as 

 a sea-trout from i to 2^ lbs., according to the length of time it remains 

 in the sea. In the earliest rivers they begin to run in January, although 

 only in small numbers, and continue till October, but of course the 

 seasons have a great deal to do with their running early or late. The 

 Tay, I dare say, is the earliest river in Great Britain, and one would 

 expect them in it as early as in any river. Every spring paragraphs 

 appear in the public press stating that most of the sea-trout caught in 



