The Habits of the Trount.

Bruce Herald, Volume VIII, Issue 714, 2 July 1875, Page 3

The Habits of the Trount.

- .^TBetrout is, 'compared; to' every other English river fish, exceedingly swift and keen-sighted, and this peculiarity isshownin his mode of seizing his prey. ;The socalled .coarse, fish, the dace, roach, an<l Ichub, tang about in shoals in mid-water, or nearer ;the -top, thanrthe bottom; 6f *< r tKef : river ; and when they feed on flies, they lift 'themselves in a somewhat leisurely and, as it were, .meditative way to the surface, arid Buck in the insects in a Iftß^cnlarl^.. Aore. azt^ d^ad|y w.ay. '^^'^'■^t^hxM^'^ih 'artificial and to^.conceal a.; barbed hook,- ...the? very,; determined manner in which it is seized, ; 'and; inbwhich turns ; and sinks below the surface, ensures its being firmly-implanted in the leathery jaws of the dace, club, or roach. It is hardly necessary for the" angler to "strike" — ,to giye-^hat, slight turn,, to ,the wrist on which so much depends in fly-fishing for trout. v He seldom disports - himself in midwater. He is a serious and not like rthe: so-called " coarse fisty" a u gregarious, animal. He loves concealment, and he lo'vies' Bolittide. He lurks at 'the bottom 1 in the shelter of some tree-root,r or great stohej or hides from the sun in the deep, shadow of a hollow bank. He loves' the rush and swirl of a strong current ; and his strength- will hold him poised with hardly a movement of hi» muscular tailfin in a rapid that would sweep the weaker fish down-stream in a ''moment. In such haunts he waits and watches for his prey as it comes hurrying past him in the running waters. He is not particular as to what it is, provided only it be animal food ; he prefers it if it have life and movement in it ; he finds his prey among the teeming insectlife of the river itself, among the larvae of the innumerable kinds of Ephemeridse and Phrygandise, the creepers and watercrickets, and among the May-flies and stone-flies into which these creatures develop. He devours the loach, and the bullhead, and the minnow, the young of every fish that swims, the fresh- water shrimps, and even the water-beetles ; nor does he neglect the waifs and strays of ' his native stream, its varied jetsam and flotsam, the caterpillars and tree insects that are shaken by the wind off the treebranches on the bank, and worms and ! slugs that are swept down in flood- time from the meadows. Prom his hiding-place his keen glance catches sight of every in sect swept past him in the eddy, of the tiniest minnow swimming through the broken water; and he darts, with a rush tpo quick sometimes for the human eye to follow, often through several yards of water to seize his prey. His rush is impetuous, and his baste will sometimes cause him, when he has detected the artificial nature of the bait, to strike against it, and become pierced with the hook — to be " hooked foul," as anglers say. Oftener he stops in time, and refuses to take the bait. This keen sight of the trout, and the distance from which his rush is often made, are one of the first lessons an angler has to learn.—' The New Quarterly Magazine.'