They are famous, and, according to Sir Walter
Scott, were famous as long ago as in Queen Mary's time, for the bright
silver of their sides, for their pink flesh, and gameness when hooked.
Theorists have explained all this by saying that they are the descendants
of land-locked salmon. The flies used on the loch are smaller than those
favoured in the Highlands; they are sold attached to casts, and four
flies are actually employed at once. Probably two are quite enough at a
time. If a veteran trout is attracted by seeing four flies, all of
different species, and these like nothing in nature, all conspiring to
descend on him at once, he must be less cautious than we generally find
him. The Hampshire angler, of course, will sneer at the whole
proceeding, the "chucking and chancing it," in the queer-coloured wave,
and the use of so many fanciful entomological specimens. But the
Hampshire angler is very welcome to try his arts, in a calm, and his
natural-looking cocked-up flies. He will probably be defeated by a
grocer from Greenock, sinking his four flies very deep, as is, by some
experts, recommended. The trout are capricious, perhaps as capricious as
any known to the angler, but they are believed to prefer a strong east
wind and a dark day. The east wind is nowhere, perhaps, so bad as people
fancy; it is certainly not so bad as the north wind, and on Loch Leven it
is the favourite.
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