MATURITY 147 



the sea-trout of the Clyde district, because only through it have the fish 

 got convenient access to a considerable number of spawning streams in 

 an estuary where accessible spawning streams are remarkably scarce. 

 By way of contrast Loch Awe holds hardly any sea-trout, and this is 

 possibly because not it, but Loch Etive, is the natural gathering ground 

 of the fish. Loch Etive is a tidal loch in which the fish find convenient 

 spawning streams without being driven to the necessity of making a 

 long and adventurous ascent up the river Awe to the distant Loch Awe 

 spawning tributaries. One might multiply examples, but anglers will 

 be able to see, each for himself, how far this theory will apply to those 

 districts with which he is familiar. 



A loch then, fresh, brackish or salt, may be the original and 

 hereditary habitat of the fish; it may, if salt or brackish, be still their 

 actual feeding ground; and it may, in any event, be the gathering 

 ground in which they assemble preparatory to spawning and to which 

 they return as kelts. If we further assume a strongly marked shoal 

 habit in the sea-trout — a habit which I think is beyond question — the 

 loch, if wholly fresh, will afford better than any river will a sanctuary 

 and nursery for the fry and parr until such time as they descend to the 

 estuary as smolts. 



It follows that wherever a fresh-water loch, almost at sea-level and 

 within easy access of the sea, serves the fish of a district as both 

 sanctuary and gathering ground, one may there expect to find sea-trout 

 in great numbers, and that is precisely what one does find. Mr. 

 Calderwood has stated that in three seasons 33,000 sea-trout were netted 

 in the Echaig, the stream of no great size which drains Loch Eck to the 

 sea. The numbers of sea-trout which throng the Hebridean and 

 Orkney lochs are extraordinarily great, and of course such lochs as 

 Loch Maree, Loch Shiel and Loch Lomond attract anglers from all 

 quarters for the sea-trout fishing they afford. 



In the Loch Lomond waters with which I am most familiar the large 



