Salmonia; Or, Days of Fly Fishing / In a series of conversations. With some account of the habits of fishes belonging to the genus Salmo

by Sir Humphry Davy

Hal.—There are probably more: try again.

Orn.—Behold! the loss was more owing to the imperfection of the tackle than to my ardour; for the two end hooks only are gone, and you may see the gut worn.

Hal.—The thing is done, and is not worth comment. If you can, let the next fish that rises hook himself. When we are ardent, we are bad judges of the effort we make; and an angler, who could be cool with a new species of salmo, I should not envy. Now all is right again: try that pool. There is a fish—ay! and another, that runs at your bait; but they are small ones, not much more than twice as large as the bleak; yet they show their spirit, and though they cannot swallow it, they have torn it. Put on another bleak. There! you have another run.

Orn.—Ay, it is a small fish, not much more than a foot long; yet he fights well.

Hal.—You have him, and I will land him. I do not think such a fish a bad initiation into this kind of sport. He does not agitate so much as a larger one, and yet gratifies curiosity. There, we have him. A very beautiful fish; yet he has the leech, or louse, though his belly is quite white.

Orn.—This fish is so like a trout, that, had I caught him when alone, I should hardly have remarked his peculiarities; and I am not convinced, that it is not a variety of the common trout, altered, in many generations, by the predatory habits of his ancestors.

Hal.—How far the principle of change of character and transmission of such character to the offspring will apply, I shall not attempt to determine, and whether all the varieties of the salmo with teeth in their mouth may not have been produced from one original; yet this fish is now as distinct from the trout, as the char or the umbla is; and in Europe, it exists only below great falls in streams connected with the Danube, and is never found in rivers of the same districts connected with the Rhine, Elbe, or which empty themselves into the Mediterranean; though trout are common in all these streams, and salmon and sea trout in those connected with the ocean. According to the descriptions of Pallas, it occurs in the rivers of Siberia, and probably exists in those that run into the Caspian; and it is remarkable, that it is not found where the eel is usual—at least this applies to all the tributary streams of the Danube, and, it is said, to the rivers of Siberia. Wherever I have seen it, there have been always coarse fish—as chub, white fish, bleak, &c., and rivers containing such fish are its natural haunts, for it requires abundance of food, and serves to convert these indifferent poor fish into a better kind of nourishment for man. We will now examine the interior of these fish. You see the stomach is larger than that of a trout, and the stomachs of both are full of small fish. In the larger one there is a chub, a grayling, a bleak, and two or three small carp. The skin you see is thick; the scales are smaller than those of a trout; it has no teeth on the palate, and the pectoral fin has four spines more, which, I think, enables it to turn with more rapidity. You will find at dinner, that, fried or roasted, he is a good fish. His flesh is white, but not devoid of curd; and though rather softer than that of a trout, I have never observed in it that muddiness, or peculiar flavour, which sometimes occurs in trout, even when in perfect season.

I shall say a few words more on the habits of this fish. The hucho, as you have seen, preys with great violence, and pursues his object as a foxhound or a greyhound does. I have seen them in repose: they lie like pikes, perfectly still, and I have watched one for many minutes, that never moved at all. In this respect their habits resemble those of most carnivorous and predatory animals. It is probably in consequence of these habits, that they are so much infested by lice, or leeches, which I have seen so numerous in spring as almost to fill their gills, and interfere with their respiration, in which case they seek the most rapid and turbulent streams to free themselves from these enemies. They are very shy, and after being hooked avoid the baited line. I once saw a hucho, for which I was fishing, follow the small fish, and then the lead of the tackle; it seemed as if this had fixed his attention, and he never offered at the bait afterwards. I think a hucho, that has been pricked by the hook, becomes particularly cautious, and possesses, in this respect, the same character as the salmon. In summer, when they are found in the roughest and most violent currents, their fins (particularly the caudal fin) often appear worn and broken; at this season they are usually in constant motion against the stream, and are stopped by no cataract or dam, unless it be many feet in height, and quite inaccessible. In the middle of September I have caught huchos perfectly clean in rapid cool streams, tributary to the Laybach and the Sava rivers; and, from the small developement of their generative system at this time, I have no doubt that they spawn in spring. On the 13th of September, 1828, I caught, by spinning the dead small fish, three huchos, that had not a single leech upon their bodies, and they were the first fish of the kind I ever saw free from these parasites.

Orn.—I am so much pleased with my good fortune in catching this fish, that I shall try all day to-morrow with the bait, for more of the same kind.

Hal.—You may do so; but many of these fish cannot be caught; they migrate generally when the water is foul, and, except in the spring and autumn, do not so readily run at the bait. I was once nearly a month seeking for one in rivers in which they are found, between the end of June and that of July, without being able to succeed in even seeing one alive; and as far as my information goes, the two places where there is most probability of taking them, are at Laybach and Ratisbon, in the tributary streams to the Sava, and in the Danube; and the best time, in the first of these situations, is in March and April, and in the second, in May. I am told, likewise, that the Izar, which runs by Munich, is a stream where they may be caught, when the water is clear: but I have never fished in this stream—it having been foul, either from rain, or the melting of the snows, whenever I have been at Munich; but I have seen in the fish-market at Munich very large huchos. Late in the autumn, or in early spring, this river must be an interesting one to fish in, as the schill, or perca lucio perca, and three other species of perca are found in it—the zingel, the apron, and the perca schratz—all fish of prey, and excellent food. I have eaten them, but never taken them; they are rare in European rivers, though not, like the hucho, peculiar to the tributary streams of the Danube. The schill is found likewise in the Sprey and in the Hungarian lakes, and, according to Bloch, the zingel in the Rhone.