CHAPTER XIX.
SEA TROUT FISHING AND ITS CHANCES.
FOR his size and weight there is no more sporting fish in the wide world than the sea trout. His play when hooked is so full of vivacity, so strenuous, you never know what he is going to do next. Half the time of the contest he spends out of the water in the air. He rushes hither and thither in the most unexpected manner, and having no particular stronghold or shelter to make for, such as his cousins, the brown trout, possess in their rivers, he tries by resourceful activity to rid himself of the irksome restraint of the rod and line. His rise, too, is so determined and so dashing--no quiet sucking down of a dun without much perceptible body movement, but rather a rapid dash to secure an article of food before his comrades can get it. Not much need to strike with him; he hooks himself pretty effectually by his own efforts. Given a single-handed split cane rod, fine tackle, and plenty of fresh run sea trout in a Highland river, and you have the prospect of as good a day's sport as any you ever enjoyed. You never know what the next cast will produce; it may be a half-pounder or something twelve times as big.
The worst of sea trout, from the angler's point of view, is that they are rather gregarious and keep in shoals; they are always anxious to move up to the still deeps they love so well, and you may just miss the shoal--they may be just above your water. But if you do happen to hit them off, you will have no reason to regret it. Not many seasons ago I was invited by a friend to shoot with him on one of the many Western islands near Mull. Just before I reached the lodge, in my somewhat long drive up from the landing place, I met my friend, rod in hand, by a deep-looking, leg-of-mutton-shaped pool where his stream found its outlet into the brackish waters of the arm of the sea that looked like a land-locked loch.
"Get out of the trap; I've got a treat for you," were his first words of greeting; and then he explained that they had had, the evening before, the first run of the sea trout, and that, standing on a little rock in the brackish water, he had caught quantities of fine fish. Nothing loth to stretch my arms and legs, I took the proffered rod with many thanks, and fished the pool down carefully without a rise of any kind, or a sign of a fish. Putting on another fly, I tried it down again, and also the brackish water at its mouth, with similar results. My friend had foreborne to throw a fly on it until my arrival, and so he chaffed me unmercifully at my want of success after the extraordinary sport he had experienced the afternoon before. I told him that I did not believe there was a trout in the water, and as he had the netting rights, and had come down in the boat with the nets in it, we carefully netted the pool. My host was so convinced that the sea trout were there, that he offered to bet me any odds against a blank draw. He would, however, have lost had I taken his bet, for sure enough there was not a single fish in the whole pool. Whilst I made my way up to the lodge, he went up to try some of the higher pools, but not a rise did he get. The whole big run, shoal like, had run clean up into a small lochan, of which his stream was the outlet.
But when you happen to find them just in the right place, where you are, then you may congratulate yourself, if you have not too big a rod with you, for half the pleasure of angling is to suit your rod and tackle to the river and the fish. It is giving the show away and discounting half your sport to be "over-rodded." To fish, for instance, in the upper beats of, say, the Helmsdale, in Sutherland, with an 18 ft. rod is absurd. A 16 ft. or 14 ft. grilse rod will enable you to cover the water well, and the sport you will get from the 9 lb. to 14 lb. salmon in the well-stocked river will be greatly enhanced. A powerful 18 ft. Castleconnel will choke the fish unadvisedly. You might as well use a sledge hammer to crack an egg. So, too, with sea trout, a 14 ft. double-handed rod robs you of the better part of the sport and gives you no real satisfaction. On the other hand, if, as you may well do, you happen to get into a grilse or small salmon with your small rod and forty yards of line, then the sport you get will be worth living for, and will often recur to your remembrance in after times. You will need all your knowledge and resource not to be broken; you will in all probability have no gaff with you, and will have to tail him out, or, better still, persuade him to kick himself ashore on a shelving beach when played out. And it is extraordinary how little pressure of the rod is needed in such cases to keep his head the right way, and each kick and wriggle sends him further up the beach. Then getting between him and the river, having laid down your rod, you can put him out of his misery and despatch him.
A few seasons ago, when grouse shooting in the North, I was kindly given an opportunity to fish the Glentana beats of the Dee. The river was low, and as it was then early September, what fish were up were red and ugly, but a change to the river side was welcome, and I had never seen the pools in that part of the water. So, donning my waders, I took with me a 10 ft. 6 in. rod, cane-built, by Walbran, some light grilse and trout casts, and the smallest grilse flies I had by me. I also fortunately put in my bag a small box of Test flies. Nothing had been done for days in any of the Ballater waters, or indeed in any part of that brawling river Dee. The few anglers who had gone out had religiously kept to the orthodox salmon rod, salmon gut, and big flies, and had caught nothing. When I got out of the dogcart and put up my little rod I noticed a smile upon the river keeper's face, but nothing daunted thereby, I followed him down the slopes to a beautiful pool below.
I put on a baby Jock Scott, and fished the pool most carefully. At the tail of the pool a big red fish gave a sullen kind of plunge, but not at my fly, for it was not near him at the time. I put the Jock Scott over him without result, and then tried him with a tiny Silver Doctor; but he ignored that also; and so I wandered down from pool to pool, learning a good deal of the river bed, owing to the lowness of the water. After a bit, I saw what I took to be the rise of a trout on the far side, so taking off my "Doctor," I opened my Test fly box and examined its contents. I hit off a gold-ribbed hare's ear, dressed on a 00 hook, which I thought might do, and wading out, had to make my little rod do all it could to reach the required spot. I fished the water above first, in order to soak my fly and make it sink. When I reached the place where I thought I had seen the rise, I fished with more care, and soon as my fly was working round below me, I felt a vigorous tug; something had taken it under water without showing. I was soon convinced that it was no trout that had laid hold, and got ashore as quickly as I could, but I had only forty yards of line and a little backing, so was soon compelled to take to the water again, as my fish was playing sullenly on the far side of the stream. I put on what pressure I dare in order to get on better terms with him, and this roused him a bit, for a vigorous run up to the head of the pool nearly ran my line out, although I was wading as deep as I dared do. My friend the keeper now became interested, and waded in alongside me.
Though big, the fish was rather craven-hearted, and I was soon able to get ashore again. However, his weight was great, and when he got into the stream down he went into the next pool, I following, rod point up and reel freely running. There were about forty minutes of this slow kind of play and several incursions into the water, and then I began to see my backing on the reel perilously diminishing. The 00 hook, however, still held well, and at last I had the satisfaction of seeing the big brute floundering on the surface. The keeper, meanwhile, had gone lip to the house to get a gaff, and, walking backwards from the river, I tried to drag the exhausted salmon within his reach; but, although the rod point was about level with the reel, the dead weight of the fish was more than I could manage. So my friend the keeper, deploring the irreparable damage that must have been done to my rod, waded in, thigh deep, and drove the steel into about as ugly and as red an old cock fish as I have ever seen. His under jaw was crooked, and he looked like an evil monster. He weighed just 17½ lb. As soon as the strain was off my Walbran rod it sprang up as straight and as limber as ever, to the great astonishment of the keeper, who had, oddly enough, never come across a rod of that description. Burying our red fish in the bracken, we went down a bit lower, and, two pools below the house, got out another cock fish of 10 lb., and returning home secured a third in the very same pool where I had caught the first; this proved to be a hen fish of 12 lb. They were all red and ugly, but the last one was, comparatively speaking, quite passable. As soon as she was gaffed we looked up the first fish; he had turned quite black, and was a gruesome sight. So, leaving the three fish with the keeper, to kipper or do what he liked with, I got into the dogcart and drove home. Of course, these fish would not have come to the gaff in the way they did had they been spring fish, or lately arrived in the water; but, all the circumstances being taken into account, the 21st September, 1900, will always recur to my mind as a real sporting day. Sundry other salmon has this little rod accounted for, and it is as true as steel and fit for any fight.
Such incidents as these add very materially to the interest of sea trout fishing, for, as I have said, you never can tell what your next cast may produce. It is small wonder, therefore, that good sea trout angling is so eagerly sought after and so hard to get. Your best chance of getting such sport is to go a bit further afield, to the Shetland Isles, the Orkneys, or somewhere a little out of the beaten track.
_L'ENVOI_
_Seasons come and go, each in its turn bringing us nearer to the last, those that remain for our enjoyment growing steadily and inevitably fewer. But the instinct of sport, inbred in most of us, dies hard. I, too, would echo Mr. Sydney Buxton's words, and hope that when my time comes, and my loved rods hang useless in their cases, Old Charon will permit me to loiter awhile on the Styx, and cast one last fly on its dark and turgid waters._
ALSO BY THE SAME AUTHOR.
UNIFORM WITH "CHATS ON ANGLING."
STALKING SKETCHES.
With Numerous Illustrations by the Author.
CONTENTS.
I.--INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. II.--THE FOREST AND SANCTUARY. III.--THE STALKER. IV.--PERSONAL EQUIPMENT. V.--THE SHOT AND THE GRALLOCH. VI.--DEER AND THEIR ANTLERS. VII.--PECULIARITIES OF DEER. VIII.--HIND SHOOTING. IX.--DEERHOUNDS AND WOUNDED DEER. X.--THE SPIRACULA OF DEER.
ILLUSTRATIONS.
OVER THE PASS (Frontispiece). BY THE LOCH SIDE. BRINGING HIM IN. THE POOL IN THE SANCTUARY. A FAMILY PARTY. A GOOD REST. CREEPING DOWN THE HILL. SPYING. A WET CRAWL. A DOWN-HILL SHOT. HEAD OF RED DEER STAG (44 Points). CURIOUS ONE-HORNED STAG. DEFIANCE. THE HUMMEL AND THE HORNED STAG. SENTINELS OF THE FOREST. CHILDREN OF THE MIST. THE LAST ACT.
_EXTRACTS FROM PRESS NOTICES._
"The book will be found a welcome addition to the sportsman's library."--_Liverpool Mercury._
"The author's full-page illustrations are delightful things--pictures in the best sense of the word."--_Newcastle Chronicle._
"Capt. Hart-Davis's delightfully breezy pages contain, besides a quantity of advice to novices, and, for that matter, others besides novices, a number of excellently written accounts of stalks and good stories of the 'hull.' The writer's pencil sketches add not a little to the attractiveness of a volume that is sure to take its place on the shelves of the enthusiastic stalker.... Every page contains sound and wholesome advice on the sport and everything connected with it."--_County Gentleman._
"The seventeen full-page illustrations are a pleasure to look at, filled as they are with the very breath and spaciousness of the lonely haunts of the deer."--_Glasgow Herald._
"Such a compleat stalker is Capt. Hart-Davis, and many who view his hardier craft with scant interest, or even with scant sympathy, may spend a delightful hour in looking over his admirable drawings."--_Yorkshire Observer._
"The prime essential to make a book worth reading is that the author should have familiar knowledge of his subject; but when he adds just that degree of enthusiasm which renders him eloquent as well, the reader deems himself fortunate. Capt. Hart-Davis, however, adds a third grace, for he is his own artist likewise, and has drawn a series of beautiful illustrations, rich in the true atmosphere of the Highlands."--_Notts Guardian._
"Without bringing Landseer into comparison, there are a number of drawings here, which for their presentment of stag and hind, of moor and fell, and misty mountain side may fairly be placed against anything of the kind from the pencils of Ansdell or Frederick Taylor."--_Bookseller._
"One great merit that the book possesses is originality, for although the subject is by no means new, the author's treatment of it imparts a freshness which carries the reader from page to page with sustained interest."--_The Field._
"His chapters on 'Personal Equipment' and 'The Shot' are excellent, and ought to be closely studied by all novices at this sport."--_Sporting and Dramatic News._
"Capt. Hart-Davis deserves thanks not only for what he has written and sketched, but also for what his book suggests of the sport which holds the first place in Scotland."--_Land and Water._
"The surroundings of stags in the forests of Scotland are excellently represented in 'Stalking Sketches,' a reprint of articles contributed to _The Field_, illustrated by the author's drawings, which for the most part have considerable artistic merit. The articles justify republication, being pleasantly written and full of sound advice.... The volume is attractively got up, and should please many besides deerstalkers."--_Athenæum._
"Capt. Hart-Davis has now published in book form his very interesting series of 'Stalking Sketches' which originally appeared in _The Field_. The volume is very well illustrated with a number of full-page original pictures by the author. Everyone interested in our forests and stalking, whether through the good fortune of personal experience, or merely through the literature of sport, will welcome these articles in their present form."--_Dundee Advertiser._
"Sportsmen who love the red deer will give a ready welcome to this readable book. It is on every page lively with the interest born of an intimate practical knowledge of the sport, and is illustrated by many drawings, which are not only noticeable from their artistic merits, but have a didactic value of their own for naturalists and young sportsmen. The work makes a valuable addition to the literature of its subject."--_Scotsman._
London: HORACE COX, Windsor House, Bream's Buildings, E.C.
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Transcriber's Notes:
Obvious punctuation errors repaired. All weights have a space between the number and the "lb." This was also done with "ft." and "in."
Page 56, duplicate word "a" removed from text. Original read (a a smiling rubicund)
Page 63, "circumstanses" changed to "circumstances" (upon several circumstances)