Whether sea trout should be ranked as a distinct species, or whether there are any different species of trout in America, has been a serious question. It is a great misfortune that every naturalist, in his eager endeavor to discover new species and originate new names, has caught at the slightest distinctions in appearance, which are often only due to food or water, and has immediately dubbed the fish a knight and endowed him with a new name—frequently some horrible Latin perversion of his own. Real distinctions are those permanent ones that no change of food and water can affect, nor the chance influence of a few shell-fish or a muddy bottom. There are distinctions between these trout and brook trout, of color, comparative size of different parts of the body, formation of the head and fins; but not more so than one often meets with in fishing any of the streams of Long Island that communicate with the sea, or even in the different streams of the wild woods. The sea trout of Canada certainly do far excel the ordinary trout in size, being taken, with the fly, weighing nine pounds, and the ordinary average being from three to four; but otherwise they seem to have no permanent peculiarity that should distinguish them from the common brook trout. All other distinctions fade after the trout have been for some time in fresh water, and a late run of sea trout differs far more from those which have ascended the streams a month earlier than the latter from the brook trout. Indeed, some sea trout have become domesticated in the fresh water, and never returning to the sea, have settled down, although often of great size, into the ordinary trout.
In Stump Pond, on Long Island, and the adjacent waters, are four different varieties of trout: the old-fashioned Stump Pond Trout,[5] with a black mouth, a long, thin body, a big head, and a wolfish, hungry look; the Salt Water Trout, with a small, sleepy head, a deep body, and a rich coloring, small fins and red flesh; the Brook Trout, long, narrow, brightly marked, gracefully shaped and lively; and a trout which has appeared in a new pond, scarcely yet completed, with a dark, strong coloring, very black on the back, a thick, stout body, and a well proportioned head. Any one can distinguish these fish at a glance, but must they each have a different name, and a Latin one at that?
The fresh run sea trout of the North have beautiful silver sides, almost as bright as a salmon’s, and in this particular, at least, differ from the salt water loving trout of Long Island and Cape Cod. Their heads are small, delicate, and exquisitely shaped, and their lower fins are small and almost transparent. The heads of the males are larger, and the lower jaw more hooked than those of the female, and these differences increase as the spawning season advances. The head of the female bears a comparison to that of a modest, refined lady, while that of the male resembles the big head and ugly jaw of the struggling, quarrelling, but protecting man. At times their flesh is a bright red, often a dull yellow and rarely whitish. The shape of their bodies is graceful and broad across the back, to a greater degree in both particulars than the sea run trout of Long Island and Massachusetts. But as they ascend the rivers, and after they have been some time in their new abode, these peculiarities diminish, the color of their backs turns from a beautiful green to a dull black, the splendor of their silvery sides fades, and the heavy spots and roseate tinge appear; their translucent fins grow opaque and strong from greater use in the swift current; their shape even seems to alter, and they are altogether unlovely by comparison with their former selves. Are they, therefore, “like Cerberus, three gentlemen at once,” and entitled to three distinct appellations, or are they simply our dearly loved old friends, the Speckled Trout?
The change in appearance of these fish cannot be explained by the suggestion that the ordinary brook trout ascend the rivers and mingle with those of the sea, because the latter are to be caught in every stage, from the brilliancy of the fresh river fish to the dull colors of the oldest inhabitant. And it will be noticed that at the heads of the rivers a bright-colored fish is rarely met with, although they must be, with few exceptions, all sea trout.
The best trout rivers of Canada are troublesome to reach, difficult to ascend, and seldom attempted by any but the salmon fisher. To the latter, the trout, attractive as he seems to us, is a trial and a nuisance. Abundant and voracious, he often rushes in advance of the lordly salmon, seizes the fly, and then discovering his mistake, by his struggles disturbs the pool, ruffles the fisherman’s temper, and frightens the larger game from its equanimity. He is therefore little noticed by the frequenters of the headwaters, except to be denounced, and his delicate peculiarities seldom considered and less esteemed. He is principally sought in the tide water along the shores, or from boats in the open bays, but rarely followed to his summer home. The statements, therefore, of Canadian fishermen with regard to him must be cautiously received and carefully weighed; their experience may not have been sufficiently extended.
Whatever be his name, he is a beauty, the fairest of the children of the sea. There are others of more variegated colors, of gaudier hues, of more slender shape, but the trout is lord of all. He is the pet of the true fisherman, whether taken by the name of Salmo trutta in the bays of Canada, weighing over ten pounds, or as Salmo fontinalis, in the mountain streams of Vermont, reaching not one quarter as many ounces. In Canada, sportsmen—and none others seem to fish—take the sea trout solely with the fly. In June, and earlier, they are found in the tide waters, and there prefer gaudy flies. The scarlet ibis, or curry-curry of South America, dressed as it is ordinarily done, or diversified by a little gold or silver tinsel wound round the body, or indeed the entire hook wound with tinsel alone, is by many preferred to all other flies; but the red hackle, the golden pheasant, the professor, the grey drake, and in fact any gay fly, will meet with approval. A much admired fly is made of a red body and yellow wings; but the more sober colors must not be forgotten nor neglected, they are often more successful than their gaudy relations. As the season advances, and the fish ascend the clear, cool rivers, especially if the water be low and the weather dry, the sober flies are preferable. Then the cow-dung, the alder-fly, the turkey-brown, the winged black hackle, and in fact all the ordinary flies, are in demand; a fly invented by myself, of a blackbird’s wing and a claret body and legs, and called the early fly, has often proved itself uncommonly killing; and indeed all the flies usually employed in other waters are appropriate for the sea trout in Canada.
Neither does the size of hook differ from that ordinarily in use; it should average about a number nine, with a few somewhat larger for rough water. It is rarely desirable, on account of the enormous size of the fish, to use more than one fly at a time, and generally the trout will soon remove the difficulty by reducing them to that number; but at times, when fish are shy, they seem to be attracted by seeing several. In order to kill the largest possible quantity, without any regard to humanity or sportsmanship, a heavy fly-rod is desirable, as much time is lost in landing them with a delicate rod.
For many hundred miles below Quebec, the majestic St. Lawrence rolls its transparent waters in a steady surge toward the ocean. Forward and backward heaves the mighty tide, piling up the waters eighteen and twenty feet; but the steady current keeps on its course toward the gulf. Into this wonderful stream, that can only be likened to an arm of the sea, at every few miles debouches from the granite hills a river, more or less extensive and more or less rocky and turbulent. These rivers rise on the mountain tops, cold and clear, and thunder down over falls and rapids, through chasms and gorges split in the eternal rock, till they leap, tumble or crawl into that outlet of a thousand lakes, the highway of the Canadas.
These streams the salmon and trout ascend, there to disport themselves, there to make love, prepare their nests, and perpetuate their species. The water is cool, running from the frigid regions of the north or supplied by icy springs, and the bottom offers every variety of spawning beds. There is the stony pool for the salmon, the pebbly one for the trout, and never do the two spawn, and rarely even live, in the same. The pool where the salmon lie is deep and rapid, with a bottom composed of dark limestones averaging about the size of a bantam’s egg. While the trout hide in a sluggish pool, and often one worn away by the water and hollowed from a clay bank. It is a tradition, but one by no means well substantiated, that trout never eat young salmon, nor salmon young trout. As trout are more fond of their own species than almost any other delicacy, it is not probable they would be fastidious about swallowing a nice, juicy little salmon.
The country through which these streams run is very peculiar: rough hills of granite rise almost perpendicularly from the edge of the water, many hundred and sometimes many thousand feet. Their sides are bare and bleak, and if adorned at all with verdure, it is with a stunted pine and spruce, that only half hides the white rock beneath. The streams wind in tortuous course among the crags, and slowly gain a high elevation. These bare, unprofitable hills extend back from the north shore of the St. Lawrence as far as the foot of man has penetrated, and only at long intervals by the shore of some of the larger rivers, where forty centuries of storms have worn away and washed the detritus from the mountain into some little bay, have half civilized beings been enabled to build rough cabins and glean a scanty subsistence. Thus are these waters, the home and nursery of the trout and salmon, protected forever by nature against the pervading destructiveness of man. Judicious laws have been passed and will be enforced by the Canadian government, and the American fisherman may find in neighboring waters what he will never again see in his own, these noble fish dwelling in abundance, and protected from worthless, wanton and unreasonable destruction.