It has been remarked by many other people, as well as myself, that, of all fish in existence, there is not one that you can partake of so many days in succession, without ceasing to enjoy it, as a trout, provided it be fresh caught, and well in season. Almost every sportsman, and every fishmonger, has his own way of fancying that he can tell when a trout is in season. As to the red spots on the skin having any thing to do with it, the very idea is absurd and fallacious. But the more general criterions are a small head and high crest, a full tail, and the roof of the mouth, or, what is still better, the flesh under the tongue being rather of a pink colour. Another excellent criterion, which was explained to me by Mr. Joseph Miller, the fishmonger in Piccadilly, is the smallness and tightness of the vent; for the better the trout is in season, the smaller will be that vent-hole, which is formed just before the under or belly-fin. And, after all, I prefer this, and one other way of deciding; which is by the bright and silver-like appearance of the scales. Take twenty trout, and, I think, if you dress them all, and previously mark that one on which the scales shone the brightest, it will prove to be the best fish. This may be frequently ascertained, even before you land a trout, as a bright one, on being first hooked, generally gives two or three leaps out of the water.
Before you send trout on a journey, always have them cleaned and gutted, and let them be laid on their backs, and closely packed in willow (not flag) baskets, and with either flags or dry wheat-straw. Packing in damp grass or rushes is apt to ferment, and therefore liable to spoil your fish.
Salmon and trout were here to be found among the rest. Indeed the people asserted there were nine kinds of the former, for all of which they had names, each kind making its appearance in the river at different periods of the year. This must of course be a mistake, as so many varieties of that fish do not, I imagine, exist.
Altogether I caught thirty-seven trout and salmon, their aggregate weight being two hundred and twenty-six pounds, or on an average something better than six pounds a-piece. The greatest number I killed in any one day were seven, and the largest I took was eighteen pounds; this weight was however comparatively nothing, for in the river below the falls salmon were occasionally taken in nets weighing forty, fifty, sixty, and even seventy pounds.
The trout are very fine at Trolhattan; I have killed them upwards of twelve pounds’ weight. They are about the best grown fish I ever saw in my life.
The high flavour and red colour for which the fish taken in Lochleven are so famed, are understood to arise from the ford by which they are supported in the loch; it being a general rule that while the flesh of trout is white in clear and limpid waters, the same sort, when found where the rivers pass slowly through a tract of foul or meadow ground, have less or more redness in their colour. A considerable part of the bottom of Lochleven is spongy, from which aquatic plants rise in great abundance; and in many parts, towards the beginning of autumn, cover the surface of the water with their flowers. But the circumstance to which the high colour of the Lochleven trout is chiefly ascribed, is the vast quantity of a small red shell fish which abounds in the bottom of the loch, and especially among the aquatic plants; its form is globular, and the trouts when caught have often their stomachs full of these shell-fish. They generally lie in deep water, and will not rise to any kind of fly or hook however baited: it has been remarked also, that in Lochleven are discovered all the different species of river trout, and after they have remained some time in the loch, and approached towards one pound in weight, they become red in flesh. (Vide Fishing, Rod, Worm, &c., &c.)—Daniel—Davy—Lloyd—Wild Sports, &c.
Trump, s. A trumpet, an instrument of warlike music; a winning card; a card that has particular privileges in a game.