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.