Sea-trout and their names
[Preliminary note on the hyphen: many sea-trout names are technically-speaking compound
words consisting of two separate words joined together to make a new word: sea-trout, fork-tail
and black-neb are examples. Older, standard British English spelling conventions generally treat
such words by inserting a hyphen between the two terms, while current American spelling usage
leaves no graphic space (and inserts no hyphen) between the two words that go to make up the
compound word, thus seatrout, blackneb and so on. In what follows, as has been the case
throughout this book, standard British English spelling and typographical conventions are used,
even though these conventions are coming to look increasingly old-fashioned in the 21st century,
where ‘standard American’ is for many users of English a prestige variety of the written
language.]
Introduction
Of all fish, sea-trout (Salmo trutta trutta) seem to have the most local names. In chapter
8 of The Other Side of the Stream (1998) I listed some of them. Here is that list (as we’ll
see below, it’s incomplete), slightly augmented and in alphabetical order: black-neb, bulltrout, finnock, fork-tail, grey-trout, harvest-cock, herling, herring-peal, junior (or Juner),
May-peal, mort, orange-fin, peal, pugg-peal, salmon-trout, scurf, sewin, smelt, sprod,
truff, white-trout, whitling and yellow-fin.
Some terms, such as the familiar finnock (used largely in parts of Scotland and
Northern Ireland to refer to those sometimes immature sea-trout which have spent a mere
few months in saltwater), herling, smelt, sprod and whitling refer to the juvenile fish.
Other terms have a different dialectal distribution: peal, for example, seems to be used to
denote sea-trout in the English West Country, while sewin is thoroughly (Anglo-)Welsh.
Still other terms – bull-trout (or bullie) is a notorious example – seem to refer either to
large sea-trout distinct (in some unspecified way) from ‘usual’ sea-trout or, as local
anglers on the Northumbrian Coquet might allege, to salmon/brown trout hybrids which
return to the river in the late autumn....or perhaps to autumn-running slob trout (estuarial
brown trout). Finally, there are terms which appear to be merely opportunistic, as when
fishmongers, perhaps wishing to capitalise on the cachet of the term ‘salmon’, refer to
sea-trout as ‘salmon trout’.
Because of their dialectal spread and, often, the antiquity of their lexical form(s),
such a list of terms in particularly interesting to the sea-trout angler as well as to the
lexicographer. A great deal of information about how sea-trout have been regarded by
the angler is embedded in such a list. In what follows, that initial list will be explored Table A - and then supplemented by a second exploration, of those other terms listed in
Nall (1930) – Tables B-D. Finally, after a summary (Table E) of all terms that have
been used (or are still in use) to denote sea-trout, supplementary lists will be given
•
of those terms still is use and apparently expanding in their geographical range;
•
those terms still in use, either steady or contracting in their geographical range;
•
obsolete terms; and
•
terms not otherwise or elsewhere recorded.
*
Sea-trout names: a preliminary survey
The sea-trout wasn’t recognised as a distinct species by the author of the 15th century
Treatise, although the author had clearly heard of salmon, which seem almost
unattainable: ‘The salmon is a noble fish, but he is difficult to catch, for usually he is
found in the deep parts of big rivers; and for the most part he lies in the middle and out of
reach...’ (translated by Fred Buller and Hugh Falkus, Dame Juliana: the Angling Treatyse
and its Mysteries, 2001, p.88). The author recommended worms and dock grubs as bait,
and noted that ‘you may catch him (although it is seldom seen) with an artificial fly when
he rises....’
It must have been almost impossible to ply a fly over salmon with the tackle then
in use – a rod of around 14-18 feet, in three pieces, with the two-piece tip fitting into the
hollow butt, and with a line made of braided horse-hair affixed directly to the rod’s tip. It
might of course have been feasible to catch sea-trout with such tackle, particularly on
stillwaters and in smaller rivers, but no records of such catches or such fishing apparently
exist. If sea-trout were caught at this early period, it seems likely that they were caught on
bait, or by trapping or netting.
Nor did Walton recognise the sea-trout as a distinct sporting fish, though he noted
the existence of what he called ‘the Fordidge trout’ which ‘knows his times...of coming
into that river out of the sea, where he lives, and, it is like, feeds nine months of the year’
(ed. John Buchan, The Compleat Angler 1935: 73-74) – a clear recognition that at least
some trout could be anadromous. Further, although he is characteristically hazy, Walton
recorded that ‘[t]here are also in divers Rivers, especially that relate to, or be near the Sea
(as Winchester, or the Thames about Windsor) a little Trout called a Samlet or Skegger
Trout (in both which places I have caught twenty or forty at a standing) that will bite as
fast and as freely as Minnows; these be by some taken to be young Salmons, but in those
waters they never grow to be bigger than a Herring’ (ed. Buchan 1935: 72-73). I suspect
that Walton was referring to salmon or trout parr, although one would give a great deal to
know whether the ‘samlet’, when caught, had silver scales. If so, Walton might well
have been catching smolts or even herling – and if the last, it would be somehow nice to
think that the old plagiarist was the first to record doing so.
It’s odd that Walton didn’t unambiguously recognise the sea-trout, because (with
one possible exception, see sprat/sprod below) sea-trout names are first attested as
occurring in English in the late 16th century, almost fifty years before Walton began
writing. These are peal (possibly from Old French palle, ‘of a whitish appearance’,
though an origin in Irish is more probable, see below), sewin (etymology unknown) and
whitling (from ‘whit(e)’ plus the suffix –ling, which last has the characteristic property of
referring, sometimes affectionately, to juvenile or diminutive things or entities, compare
e.g. foundling and even darling, the last from deor, dear one + - ling). Many languages
use similar tactics – adding suffixes – to indicate terms of endearment, or the relatively
small size of the thing referred to. Dutch, for instance, has the widely-used suffix –je,
thus schat ‘treasure’ and schatje ‘dearest’ (a term of endearment), or voorn ‘roach’,
voorntje ‘little roach’.
Of some little interest is that fact that present-day peal is pronounced to rhyme
with ‘feel’ – that is, with the high front vowel symbolised as [i:] by phoneticians.
Nevertheless, like tea or teal, the word is spelled with <ea>. Such <ea> spellings often
imply that at some point in their history, the words were pronounced with an e-coloured
vowel (rather like a lengthened English ‘eh’): Alexander Pope, for instance, writing in the
18th century, rhymes tea and say. For Pope, speaking a relatively conservative 18th
century London English, this was a perfectly good rhyme; it means that the vowel of tea
was in the process of becoming [i:], but had not yet reached that vocalic position in the
oral cavity. It seems possible, then, that in the 18th century at least some speakers of
English would have pronounced our sea-trout term, peal, as ‘pale’. (On the possible
derivation of peal from an Irish root, see below.)
Peal (uncertainly) and whitling (more certainly) are the first terms to record
onlookers’ and anglers’ apparent obsession with the whiteness of the (fresh-run) sea-trout
– although peal in the Irish context is used of small salmon, and may well relate to the
relative size of the fish rather than to its colour (Irish píl means ‘large’, as Ėamon de
Buitléar pointed out in 2011). A century later, and the term finnock is attested (1771;
though as with all first attestations, the term might well have been in use in speech much
earlier). Finnock derives from the (Scottish) Gaelic root fionn, ‘white’. The –ock part of
the word appears to be another suffix – a quasi-suffix, Englished from Gaelic - indicating
something small, compare e.g. bannock, a little cake or sweet-bread, hummock, small
mound.
In the 19th century, the ‘white’ theme continues as taxonomy runs riot and as the
sea-trout was briefly re-classified as Salmo albus, ‘white salmonid’. Herling, too, is first
attested in this period, and although the origin of this word is unknown, it seems to be
related distantly to that of herring.
The partial list of terms for sea-trout given in The Other Side of the Stream is
presented below in tabular form. The table may serve as a provisional list of the seatrout’s names; other tables and research will be presented below. The terms included in
the first, provisional list are terms I’ve come across either in others’ speech (in England,
Scotland and many parts of Ireland) or in my reading over the past forty years. To
research aspects of the history of these terms, I’ve used the second great edition of the
Oxford English Dictionary (abbreviated below as OED2. It’s worth noting that when the
OED was first compiled in the late 19th century and early 20th, fish taxonomy was very
different from what it is today. Since OED2 reprints much material from OED1, that
accounts for the appearance of what today seem odd pieces of classification, such as the
constant mentions in OED2 of Salmo eriox and Salmo albus).
The list has been
augmented by one or two other terms (such as ‘junior’ or ‘Juner’) which from my own
experience are common in parts of Ireland – ‘Juner’ for example is used widely on the
Currane system to refer to herling, but I haven’t heard it outside the Irish south-west
(Kerry and Cork). In the ‘Notes’ column I’ve given, where possible, recent attestations of
the word and I’ve indicated those cases where although I may have come across the term
in my reading, the word seems obsolete in speech. I’ve also included Walton’s term
‘skegger (trout)’ – simply because I was intrigued by the possible connection between a
run of sea-trout and ripening plums:
TABLE A
Term
blackneb
A preliminary list of sea-trout names
Etymolo
gy
First
written
attestation
Not
Unknown.
recorded Neb
as a sea- (‘chiefly
trout
northern
name in and Scots’
OED2
derives
from OE
nebb,
‘beak or
bill or a
bird’in a
transferred
sense i.e.
to
any
thing or
creature
having a
specified
type
of
neb. First
attestation
of
neb
725, in a
Glossary
which
Notes
Sometimes the compound ‘black-neb’ is truncated to
‘neb’: ‘After numerous takes, three sea trout to 2 1/2 lbs
and half a dozen nebs were netted.’
http://www.lochlomondangling.com/boatyarddiary/
Accessed July 8th, 2009
blacktail
bulltrout
Transpar
ently
from
black+tai
l.
From
bull
‘male of
large
animals’,
adapted
into
English
apparentl
y from
Old
Norse
bole,
boli.
Later,
bull- is
applied
as
a
specifyin
g quasiprefix to
birds and
fish,
compare
e.g. bullfinch.
translated
the Latin
nautical
term
rostrum
(‘prow’)
as neb.
OED2
records
only ‘[a]
sea-fish
not
identified
and ‘[a]
name for
certain
varieties
of
the
perch’
First
attestion
of
bull
(but not
bull-trout)
1200. The
first
to
record
bull-trout
as a seatrout
related
word was
Walton
(first
edition
1653),
who noted
that bulltrout was
a
Northumb
erland
term.
http://zipcodezoo.com/Animals/S/Salmo_trutta_trutta/
Local Coquet anglers allege that bull-trout are hybrid
salmon/brown trout. I think it more likely (though on
little direct evidence) that at least some ‘bull trout’ are
estuarial brown trout – often, large fish – making a late
summer or autumn spawning run.
finnock From
(Scots)
Gaelic
fionnag,
which
itself
derives
from
fionn,
‘white’
forktail
greytrout
Transpar
ently
from
fork+tail
1771:
‘Phinocs
are often
taken here
in
great
numbers’
At a presentation during the 2010 Dutch Fly Fair I was
asked by an audience member, who hailed from
Northern Ireland (the Foyle region, near Strabane), why
it was that I hadn’t mentioned ‘finnock’. I had, I said.
I’d simply referred to them as ‘herling’.
While fishing with Leslie Holmes on the Bann estuary
(near Coleraine) in 2010 I was intrigued to hear Leslie, a
native of that part of Northern Ireland, refer to juvenile
sea-trout as finnock. This means that the term finnock is
not confined to the Scottish Highlands and Islands:
either it derives from a Gaelic lexical inheritance
common to both countries, or it has spread from Scottish
Highland usage to Northern Ireland. I suggest that the
former is more plausible.
Smaller sea-trout – herling – almost invariably have tails
whose trailing edge is concave. Sea-trout of 2lb. and
more typically have square tails. Very large adult seatrout occasionally have tails whose trailing edge is
convex, see round-tail (which Nall recorded as a term
for large sea-trout in Northumberland and on the Tweed)
below.
1753: ‘...a
name
given to
the
Salmon,
while in
its fourth
years
growth’.
No
specific
sea-trout
sense
is
given in
OED2,
though
‘fork-tail
is
recorded
in
a
historical
quotation
under peal
(see
below).
A fork-tailed finnock from Donegal
Transpar 1661:
Now obsolete?
ently
‘Both the
from
Salmon
grey+tro and gray
ut
trouts are
very
harvest cock in
-cock this
context
derives
from an
extended
sense of
‘male of
common
domestic
fowl’
(Old
English
cocc)
pleasant,
and good
for sound
persons....
’
No
specific
sea-trout
sense
is
given in
OED2.
harvestcock given
in OED2
as one of
the ‘local
names of
salmon in
one of its
stages’,
first
attestation
in 1861.
It’s
a
puzzle to
know
whether
the
‘harvest’
is
the
earlier
hayharvest (in
which
case
harvestcock
might
refer
to
larger,
earlierrunning
sea-trout)
or the later
grainharvest, in
which
case
harvestcock
would
refer
to
the more
abundant
smaller
fish
running
into
freshwater
in August
and
September
. I suspect
– but no
more than
suspect –
that
the
last
explanatio
n is the
more
likely.
harvest Not
See note
recorded to harvester
as a sea- cock
trout
above.
name in
OED2,
though
possibly
a
precursor
of
harvestcock
herling No
1684
etymolog ‘Hirling’,
y is given 1791
in OED2, ‘...some
though
herlings’
OED2
records
the term
The term has clearly spread in lexical and geographical
extent since the 19th century and is now in widespread
use (particularly outside the north and north-west of
Scotland, Wales and parts of Ireland) to refer to juvenile
(post-smolt) sea-trout.
as
‘local’:
‘name on
the
Scottish
shore of
the
Solway
Firth, for
the fish
Salmo
albus’.
There’s
is very
probably
some
connectio
n
with
herring
(from
Old
English
hæring,
hering)
herring Possibly
-peal
related to
pale (‘of
a whitish
appearan
ce’,
possibly
adapted
from
French,
see
above).
The clear
connectio
n
to
herring
emphasis
es
the
shininess
(and
relative
lack of
Not
Now obsolete as a sea-trout term?
recorded
in OED2
in any seatrout
sense,
though
appearing
in
an
illustrative
quotation
(for
herringpeal)
under
peal.
size?) of
the fish.
junior/ Juner not
recorded
Juner in OED2
in
any
sea-trout
sense.
Junior is
adapted
from
Latin
juvenior
(‘younge
r’), and is
generally
used of
persons.
No
specific
sea-trout
sense is
recorded
for junior
in OED2.
Junior is
used
of
persons
from the
16th
century
onwards.
Sylvester Donnelly, our gillie on Lough Currane in
2009, was in no doubt about the etymology of
‘Juner/junior’. Like many in the SW of Ireland, he uses
the term to refer to smaller sea-trout, fish generally
around or under 1lb. in weight. I asked Sylvester
whether the term was properly ‘junior’ or ‘Juner’ (both
are recorded in angling log-books in local hotels and
guest-houses). ‘It should be Juner,’ replied Sylvester
decisively, ‘...because the fish start to run in June. Mind
you,’ he added, ‘the fish are running later and later, so
perhaps we ought to call them Augusters now....’
On the other hand, ‘junior’ is also in widespread use on
Lough Currane to designate smaller sea-trout:
‘Monday 21st June. Merlens Jan and Paul De Neef from
Belgium had excellent fishing with a grilse of 4.5lbs and
sea trout of 1.5lbs, 3lbs and a couple of juniors.’
(Angling report, www.loughcurrane.com, accessed June
26th, 2010)
The term is also used in Cork to denote smaller seatrout: ‘July, August, and September sees the run of
“juniors” as they are known locally, fish averaging 1 lb
(0.4
kgs)’
(http://www.tragretreat.com/fishingholidays.html, accessed April 9th 2011)
A ´Juner’ from Currane
May
peal
mort
see peal.
May
clearly
refers to
the
month in
which the
(larger)
sea-trout
begin to
run into
freshwate
r,
so
there’s a
distinctio
n
between
‘May
peal’
(larger,
earlyrunning
sea-trout)
and
‘harvestpeal’
(schools
of
typically
smaller
fish
running
later in
the
summer)
OED2
suggests
that the
origin of
the word
is
‘unknow
n’ though
it’s
possible
that the
1861
Now – and even though peal is still very much alive
edition of (particularly in SW England) as a fish name - obsolete as
Newland a sea-trout term?
(in
The
Erne: Its
Legends
and
its
FlyFishing,
first
published
1851):
‘..salmon..
.known by
the names
forktail,
mort, peal,
herring
peal, may
peal, pugg
peal,
harvest
cock’
OED2
defines as
‘[a] name
for
the
salmon in
its
third
year’ and
dates the
first
attestation
to
1530
Falkus, Sea Trout Fishing (revised 2nd edition, 1981):
‘For the uninitiated, I should explain that Smelt = Small
= Herling. Mort = Big = Sea trout. (Both Cumbrian
terms.)’
word
derives
from Old
Norse
mergth,
‘big’.
This
would be
consisten
t
with
patterns
of Norse
migration
to NW
England.
(‘Morte...a
fysshe’).
Interesting
ly,
a
further
historical
illustration
,
from
1672,
refers to
the River
Ribble (in
NW
England)
and
suggests
that
‘salmon’
of
their
first year
as referred
to
as
smelts, of
the second
year
as
sprods,
and in the
third year
–
when
the
majority
of the fish
will have
enjoyed at
least some
seafeeding,
and will
therefore
be slightly
larger – as
morts.
orange Transpar OED2
http://zipcodezoo.com/Animals/S/Salmo_trutta_trutta/
ently
defines as
-fin
from
‘a variety
orange
of
trout
(colour),
a word
borrowed
into
English
from Old
French in
the 14th
century.
peal
Possibly
borrowed
from Old
French
palle,
‘whitish
in
appearan
ce’.
Ėamon
de
Buitléar
(personal
communi
cation,
2011)
points
out,
however,
that
a
Gaelic
derivatio
n might
be more
likely,
since píl
in Irish
means
‘large’,
and thus
might
well be
applied
to grilse
found in
the
Tweed’
and first
attests the
term
as
occurring
in
that
context in
1834.
OED2
defines as
‘[a] grilse
or young
salmon
(now esp.
one under
two
pounds in
weight)....
A smaller
species of
salmon’.
In these
sense, the
first
attestation
dates from
1533
(‘The
young
frye....call
ed
lakspynke
s
[lax+pink:
McC; see
tables
below]
smowts or
salmon
peale’.
An
attestation
in 1661 is
far more
The word peal is used in parts of Ireland to denote grilse
or smaller salmon, rather than sea-trout. In SW England
the term is used exclusively of sea-trout: ‘...fresh school
peal came in on several rivers’ (Mike Weaver, Devon
angling report, Trout and Salmon, November 2009, p.
85)
The survival of the word in the English SW and in
Ireland – areas where different dialects of Gaelic are or
were once spoken - seems to indicate an origin in Gaelic
rather than in Old French.
pugg-
The
etymolog
peal
y
of
pug(g) in
the sense
of
‘an
imp,
a
dwarf
animal’
is
‘unascert
ained’
accordin
g
to
OED2.
salmon Transpar
ently
-trout from
salmon
(borrowe
d
into
English
from Old
French
saumon)
and trout
certain
about
relating
‘peal’ to
the
seatrout: ‘the
salmon
peales or
Sea
Trouts...’
The term Now obsolete as a sea-trout term?
is
first
recorded
in
Newland,
1851 – see
May peal
above.
Defined in Also used opportunistically by fishmongers to denote
OED2 as sea-trout. I have even seen the term used at fish-stalls to
‘[a] fish of denote what are clearly rainbow trout.
the species
Salmo
trutta,
resemblin
g
the
salmon,
found in
rivers of
northern
Europe’,
and
ascribed a
first
attestation
in
1421
‘Frie de
Samon
Trought’
scurf
sewin
No
secure
etymolog
y, though
the term
might
possibly
be related
to scurf
in senses
relating
to skin.
OED2
records a
sense of
scurf
meaning
‘scales or
small
laminae
of
epidermi
s’,
so
scurf in
sea-trout
senses
might
just refer
to
the
shining
scales of
the searun fish.
OED2:
‘Of
obscure
etymolog
y:
app[arent
ly)
not
Welsh’.
OED2
defines
as
‘[a]
fish
of
the
Scurf in Now obsolete as a sea-trout term?
the sense
of ‘skin(disease)’
is old: late
Old
English
scurf,
possibly
modelled
on
or
influenced
by
Old
Norse
(Old
Swedish
skorff).
OED2
defines
scurf
as
‘[t]he Seatrout,
Salmo
eriox or S.
trutta’ and
ascribes a
first
attestation
to 1483.
1531
‘..a total of 25 sewin...’ (Keith Hamlett, Dwyfor river
(‘suwynge report, Trout and Salmon, November 2009, p.86)
s’)
Salmon
tribe....th
e
bulltrout,
found in
Welsh
rivers.’
In
The
Other
Side of
the
Stream
(1998) I
suggeste
d rather
mischiev
ously that
perhaps
the word
was
derived
from
sea+wyn
n, ‘wynn’
being the
Old
English
word for
‘joy’. I
made the
suggestio
n,
however
mischiev
ous,
because
it
was
such
a
lovely
idea...but
I confess
it’s
etymolog
ically
most
unlikely.
skegge OED2
records
r
‘Of
obscure
(trout) origin’ –
but there
?
may be a
very
distant
connectio
n to skeg,
a sort of
wild
plum, if
skegger
is related
to
the
time of
year
when
(smaller)
sea-trout
run into
freshwate
r, i.e. at
the time
of
ripening
plums,
late
summer.
smelt
OE
smelt,
probably
related to
later
German
schmelt.
OED2
defines
as
‘[a]
small
fish,
Osmerus
eperlanu
s’
and
1653,
Walton
The term
smelt (sea
fish,
Osmerus
eperlanus)
is
first
attested in
725. See
also mort
above.
Now obsolete as a sea-trout term.
sprod
truff
notes that
the term
is applied
‘to other
small
fishes
freq. to
the
atherine
or sandsmelt.
OED2
doesn’t
record a
sea-trout
sense.
‘Of
obscure
origin’
(OED2).
Defined as ‘I had just two small grilse and a few sprods to show for
‘[a]
my efforts’. (Andy Hurst, report on River Lune fishing,
salmon in Trout and Salmon November 2009, p.86)
its second
year’, the
term
is
first
attested in
1617.
A variant
Nall recorded the term as being used in Devon for small
spelling
adult sea-trout.
and
pronunci
ation of
trout.
Latin
tructus
was
borrowed
into Old
English,
where it
was
spelled
truht
(alongsid
e
the
native
word for
the fish,
whitetrout
sceote
‘shoat’).
In some
English
dialects,
the <h>
of truht
came to
be
pronounc
ed
‘f’
(compare
Old
English
genog,
later
English
ynnogh,
where the
final ‘g’
or ‘gh’
also
attracted
pronunci
ations in
‘f’
(modern
English
‘enough’
)
Transpar
ently
from
white+tro
ut,
probably
modelled
on Irish
Gaelic
breac
geal
‘A variety
of S. fario’
(OED2).
The term
is
first
attested in
1745.
The term white-trout has clearly given way to sea-trout
in many parts of Ireland. As recently as 1983, Niall
Fallon wrote that ‘[y]ou betray a certain lack of
sensibility if in Ireland you refer to the white trout as a
sea trout. For in this land of white trout he is whiter than
white and is known by no other name...’ (Fly-fishing for
Irish Trout, 1983, p.85) The lexical shift might well
have been caused or accelerated by the sea-trout stock
collapse in parts of the Irish west, a collapse popularly
referred to as the ‘sea-trout crash’. The existence of
groups such as Save Our Sea-trout (SOS) might also
have contributed to the spread of the term sea-trout at
the expense of the older white-trout.
Sign on the Newport River, 2007
whitlin From
white+lin
g
g (-ling is
a suffix
which
carries
diminutiv
e force,
see
above).
Alternati
vely, the
word
might be
a further
adaptatio
n of the
Dutch
word for
whiting,
which
Gaelic breac geal. Breac (‘trout’) survives in local
place-name elements, frequently in the names of loughs
(e.g. L. Nam Breac, ‘lake of the trout’).
Defined in Postcard from a friend fishing in NW Scotland in the
OED2 as 1970s. He recorded catching saithe and whitling –
[a] fish of words which at that time I had to look up.
the salmon
family,
I very much like the spelling ‘whiddelynges’.
not
certainly
identified;
app[arentl
y]
the
young of
the bulltrout,
Salmo
eriox’.
First
attestation
1597-8:
‘Fo[u]r
floukes
and eght
was
borrowed
into
English
in
the
Middle
Ages.
yellow- Transpar
ently
fin
from
yellow+fi
n, ‘name
for
various
fishes
with
yellow
fins
or
yellow
colourati
on on the
fins’
(OED2)
whiddelyn
ges’
No
specific
sea-trout
sense
is
recorded
in OED2,
but
the
dictionary
does
record a
‘yellowfinned
Herring’
from 1804
and
in
1904, the
first
attestation
of
‘yellowfinned
Tuna’
Now obsolete as a sea-trout term? Nall recorded the term
as being in use for sea-trout parr and smolts, but I have
not myself heard or read the term. Some smaller fish,
however, do have a distinct orange or yellow-orange
colour to their pectoral fins, so it’s clear how the term
arose.
A Donegal finnock – note the yellow fins
*
That concludes a preliminary survey of sea-trout names. Next we should consider those
terms listed in Nall (1930) which are not listed above. It’s worth noticing that Nall
explicitly claimed to have composed his list from Francis Day’s Salmonidae (1887) and
Albert Wade’s ‘Salmon and sea-trout synonyms’, published in the Salmon and Trout
Magazine in 1927. Nall’s list, therefore, records the lexical distribution of sea-trout
names as this obtained in the later 19th and earlier 20th century. Some names were
doubtless becoming obsolete even as Nall recorded them.
Sea-trout names: terms from Nall (1930)
(i) terms for ‘the parr and smolt stages’ (Nall, p.309 – note that Nall suggested that
‘Many of these names are applied also to small whitling’):
herring-sprod (Cumberland); orange-fin; pink or salmon-pink; silver-grey or silver-white;
red-fin; smelt or smelt-sprod (Cumberland); sprat (Ireland); sprod (Cumberland); whitefish (Dart, Teign and SW England); yellow-fin.
Of these terms, herring- (and the compounds of which it’s a part), orange-fin,
smelt, sprod and yellow-fin are discussed above, see also Table A. That leaves the
following terms to account for: (salmon-)pink, silver-grey( -/white), red-fin, sprat, whitefish.
TABLE B
Terms (not recorded in Table A) for parr and smolt stages (Nall,
1930)
Term
red-fin
(salmon-)pink
Etymology
First
written
attestation
red- is and has been ?1803
for several centuries
in general use to
form adjectives (redfinned > red-fin).
penk was the original 1828 ‘a great many
spelling;
it
was samlets or penkes’
adapted to pink in the
C17th.
Origin
obscure. ‘A young
salmon before it
becomes a smolt.’
Notes
App. no specific seatrout sense recorded
in OED2
Also recorded as a
term for minnows
and (along with shot
and shut(te)) young
grayling
silver-grey
silver-white
Silver- widely used
in fish terms (silver
salmon).
Transparently from
the terms which
make
up
the
compound
sprat
A later form of sprot:
‘One or other of
various small fishes,
usually resembling a
sprat’ – in this sense
from the early C17th.
sprot < Old English
sprot, recorded in
1000 by Aelfric.
white-fish
Transparently from
the terms of the
compound.
‘A
general name for
fishes of a white or
light colour (esp.
those having silvery
scales....)’
No sea-trout sense
app. recorded in
OED2
1834. In 1884, Day
in Fishes of Great
Britain wrote that
‘White-salmon...is
locally
known
as...whiting,
phinock,
moudietrout, silverwhite’
After occurring in
Aelfric, the next
written
attestation
comes from 1110,
where the term is
glossed
alongside
hwitling – possibly
the
earliest
occurrence of an
attestation
of
a
specific
sea-trout
term.
Probably from the
C15th,
where
whitefish crops up
alongside herring.
(ii) terms for the ‘whitling stage and for smaller adult sea-trout’ (Nall, p.309; Nall
suggested that ‘[m]any of these names are also applied to smaller adult [s]ea-trout and
some to smolts’):
black-tail (Tweed, for smaller whitling); black-fin; black-neb; blue-cap; blue-fin; bluepoll; buntling (Clwyd, Elwy and Chester Dee); burn-tail (Tyne); cocksper; finnoc (less
correctly finnock or finnock); gravelling or grael-laspring; gravel; hepper; herling (less
correctly harling or hirling, Solway); herring-sprod (Cumberland); Lammas-man or
Lammas-trout (Edinburgh and Forth; Lammas Day is 1 August); last-spring or laspring;
moorced; morgate; moudie-trout; phinnock, phinoc or phinock (less correct forms of
finnoc); pink or salmon-pink (for small specimens); rack-rider; red-fin (for small fish);
scad; schovl-peal (Devon); shed; silver-grey and silver-white; skagger and skegger;
skarling, skerling and skirling; sprag; truff (Devon); white-fish (Dart, Teign and SW
coast of England); whiters; whiting (old Tweed name, and on English side of Solway).
TABLE C
Term
Terms (not recorded in Tables A and B) for smaller sea-trout
Etymology
First
attestation
black-fin
blue-cap
blue-fin
blue-poll
Transparent. OED: 1677
‘A salmon in its
first year...so-called
because it has a
blue spot on its
head’
written Notes
App. not recorded
in a sea-trout sense
in OED2
Probably a term for
a grilse rather than
a sea-trout
App. no sea-trout
sense recorded in
OED2 but bluecocks is recorded
as a term for Salmo
albus (C19th, when
taxonomy
was
getting
out
of
hand)
App. no sea-trout
sense recorded in
OED2, but clearly
related to blue-cap.
Poll, ‘head’ is
attested in Middle
English < obsolete
Dutch
polle,
‘summit/top
of
head’,
first
attestation 1290
App. no sea-trout
sense recorded in
OED2,
but
possibly related to
bunting (a term of
endearment – ‘Cry,
baby bunting’) or
possibly
buntin
meaning ‘short and
thick’ (thus buntin
brat
=
plump
child).
See also
gwyniad.
App. no sea-trout
sense recorded in
OED2
App. no sea-trout
sense recorded in
OED2. ? related to
cockspur, a kind of
caddis larva used
in angling (and
recorded
by
Walton) – and thus
to the fish those
larvae are used to
catch?
See
gravel,
gravelling,
laspring,
lastspring
buntling
burntail
cocksper
grael-laspring
gravel
gravelling
hepper
Lammas-man
Possibly
a
reformation
from
gravelling (see row
below)
OED2: ‘Of obscure
origin; Old French
had gravele as a
name of some fish,
perh. the minnow’
No
etymology
given
1587 ‘salmon in the
first
year
a
grauellin’
1861 ‘Local name
of a smolt’
App. no sea-trout
sense in OED2.
The lexical timing
of the term is right,
though,
since
Lammas
derives
from hlāf + mass
(‘loaf-mass’) and
fell on August 1st,
a date used by the
early church as a
harvest festival.
laspring
last-spring
moorced
Possibly
from
lax+pink (‘salmon’
+
‘small
and
shining’,
see
(salmon-) penk, pink above)
See laspring
1760
App. no sea-trout
sense in OED2
App. no sea-trout
sense in OED2
App. no sea-trout
sense in OED2, but
the
term
is
recorded,
along
with white salmon
(see
silver-white
above) in 1882
morgate
moudie-trout
Odd,
because
moudie
is
a
dialectal term for
the mole (and the
mole-catcher). It’s
difficult to see how
the term came to be
applied to a fish.
The
only
explanation I can
think of is fanciful:
the sea-trout, like
the mole, moves
under the cover of
darkness.
rack-rider
scad
App. no sea-trout
sense in OED2
From Old English
scædd,
possibly
related
to
(or
borrowed from?)
Welsh
sgadan,
‘herring’.
OE
scaedd gives us
shad, since what
was spelled <sc> in
1861 ‘All migratory
fish of the genus
salmon,
whether
known
by
the
names...shed, scad,
blue fin, black tip,
fingerling....or by
any other local
name’
OE
was
pronounced
‘sh’
(thus
e.g.
OE
biscop, ‘bishop’)
schovl-peal
Probably a variant
spelling
of
‘school’, or just
possibly of ‘shoal’
(via the spelling
<schoul>).
See scad and the
note there on shad
Words spelled with
<sk> very often
have an origin in
Old Norse and
were borrowed into
English as part of
the
Norse
settlements of parts
of the north of
England
and
southern Scotland but
no
Norse
cognates
apparently exist (?)
shed
skarling/skerling/skirling ‘Of obscure origin.
A young salmon, a
samlet, sparling’.
1776
sprag
‘Of obscure origin.’
OED2 records two
senses: (1) ‘A
lively
young
fellow’ and (2) ‘A
young salmon’
1790, then 1882,
where the term is
recorded
as
specifically
Northumbrian.
(iii) terms for adult sea-trout (Nall, pp.309-10):
bill (for ripe fish, Tweed, Esk); bourge-trout (Hants); brith-dail (Wales); budge (S
England, for large sea-trout); bull-trout (for large and coarse sea-trout); Candlemas-grey
(for a sea-trout kelt, Cumberland and Westmoreland; Candlemas falls on 2 February);
cochivie or cockivie (mouth of Tees); core or chor (Usk and Wye); Fordwich trout
(Sussex); fork-tail; gwyniad (for young sea-trout, according to Day, in Teifi); grey-trout
or grey-salmon (old Tweed name); mort and salmon-mort (Cumberland); peal (with
many additions e.g. salmon-peal, May-peal, Harvest-peal, pug-peal (Devon and SW
coast of England – Nall (p.310) also notes that in Ireland, peal are grilse, and sea-trout
are often called trout-peal); pug; pug-salmon (Devon); round-tail, for larger sea-trout
(Tweed and Northumberland); salmon-trout; schooler; scurf, scurve or salmon-scurf
(Tees); sewen or sewin (Wales); truff (for small sea-trout (Devon); twbs and twb-y-dail
(Teifi, according to Day); white-trout (the usual name in Ireland). (Note: Nall further
recorded that slob-trout ‘is a name applied to river trout which are found in salt water’.)
TABLE D
Terms (not recorded in Tables A, B or C) for adult sea-trout
Term
Etymology
First
attestation
bill
bourge-trout
brith-dail
budge
Candlemas-grey
cochive/cockivie
core/chor
gwyniad
Adapted from Welsh 1611
gwyn, ‘white’ ‘All
migratory fish of the
written Notes
App. no sea-trout
sense in OED2
App. no sea-trout
senses in OED2
App. no sea-trout
sense in OED2
App. no sea-trout
sense in OED2
Odd,
since
Candlemas falls on
February 2nd. If this
was a term for the
sea-trout, perhaps a
reference either to a
particular kind of
kelt or possibly to
large, early-run seatrout in the Tweed
and its tributaries?
App. no sea-trout
sense in OED2
App. no sea-trout
sense in OED2
Properly a term for
one of the true
whitefish
genus
salmon,
whether known by
the
names...white
trout,
sewin,
buntling,
gwyniad...or by any
other local name.’
round-tail
Round- has been
used to form generic
adjectives from the
C17th.
schooler
twbs
twb-y-dail
(Coregonus),
but
perhaps recorded as
a sea-trout term by
Nall since it occurs
in a parliamentary
bill within a context
that includes names
designating
the
salmon and seatrout.
Larger
sea-trout,
particularly
those
weighing towards (or
over)
10lb.,
occasionally have a
convex edge to their
tail fin.
App. no sea-trout
sense in OED2.
Oddly, OED2 also
appears not to record
schoolie in the sense
‘school bass’
App. no sea-trout
sense in OED2
App. no sea-trout
sense in OED2
*
If anyone had asked me, back in 1998 when I made that first, provisional list of sea-trout
names in The Other Side of the Stream, just how many names the sea-trout enjoyed or
had enjoyed, I would have hazarded ‘around....fifty?’ The correct answer seems to be
‘probably more than seventy’, since a minimum of seventy terms are recorded in Tables
A-D, summarised below in a very slightly augmented Table E, to which I’ve added the
common terms kelt and sea-trout together with two new terms certainly in use in Ireland,
clown and slanger, which last terms are explored below.:
TABLE E
Summary: names of the sea-trout
The table includes almost all the names used of sea-trout, including names which are or
which have been perhaps erroneously applied. The list includes terms for juvenile fish
and kelted fish (the last represented by the terms clown – see Aii. and C. below - kelt and
slanger):
bill
black-fin
black-neb
black-tail
blackberry trout
blue-cap
blue-fin
blue-poll
bourge-trout
brith-dail
budge
bull-trout
buntling
burntail
Candlemas-grey
clown
cockivie
cocksper
core/chor
finnock
fork-tail
grael-laspring
gravel
gravelling
grey-trout
harvest-cock
harvester
hepper
herling
herring-peal
gwyniad
junior/Juner
kelt
Lammas-man
laspring
last-spring
May peal
moorced
morgate
mort
moudie-trout
orange-fin
peal
pugg-peal
rack-rider
red-fin
round-tail
(salmon-)pink
salmon-trout
scad
scurf
schooler
schovl-peal
sea-trout
sewin
shed
silver-grey
silver-white
skarling/skerling/skirling
skegger (trout)?
slanger
slat
slob trout
smelt
sprag
sprat
sprod
truff
twbs
twb-y-dail
white-fish
white-trout
whitling
yellow-fin
Of the above list, several categories can be distinguished, as follows:
A. Terms definitely in use
A(i). Terms spreading in lexical range: herling (orinally a Solway term, now used
quite widely throughout the UK and Ireland of juvenile sea-trout and also heard in parts
of Northern Ireland, where it is lexically colliding with and possibly replacing the term
finnock); sea-trout (the general term for the fish, a term spreading in range in Ireland,
possibly as a result of the ‘Save Our Sea-trout’ [SOS] campaign of the 1990s, and
apparently ousting white-trout).
The unmarked (probably most widely distributed, least dialect-specific) terms for
juvenile and adult sea-trout, respectively, seem to be: herling, sea-trout
A(ii). Terms steady or declining in range: black-neb (also neb; localised to Loch
Lomond?), bull trout (Northumberland, more often used to designate what local anglers
believe are salmon/brown trout hybrids), clown (only in the south-east of Ireland, from
south Dublin to Wexford, and a term whose origin and etymology is explored in C.
below), finnock (used of post-smolts widely in the north and west of Scotland [usually
north of Glasgow?] and in some parts of Northern Ireland), harvester (? still in use),
junior/Juner (in widespread use in but localised to Kerry and Cork), kelt (used almost
universally of sea-trout which have spawned; also used of brown trout and of salmon),
mort (localised to the English north-west, from southern Lancashire up to but not
including the Scottish coast of the Solway), orange-fin (found in only one web entry,
thus becoming obsolete?), peal (localised to the English south-west – Cornwall, Devon
and perhaps western Dorset; in the same region, school peal is still in use to designate
sea-trout between 1-2lb.), sewin (localised to Wales, and generally used of adult seatrout), slanger (only one written reference, in 2010; used only of kelt sea-trout, and
apparently confined to Wexford - ? an idiolectal term?), slob trout (now used fairly
widely to designate brown trout resident for all or part of the year in saltwater, usually
estuaries), sprod (localised to the English north-west – the same range as mort – and used
to designate juvenile sea-trout), white-trout (still widely distributed on the island of
Ireland, but probably giving way to the term sea-trout), whitling (used in parts of
Scotland to designate juvenile sea-trout, though giving way to herling?)
Terms in use in dialects (unambiguous and non-idiolectal sea-trout terms only)
appear to be: (black-)neb (Scotland – Loch Lomond area), clown (in south-east
Ireland), finnock (Scotland/Ireland), junior/Juner (Irish south-west), mort (northwest England), (school) peal (English south-west – used in Ireland to denote grilse or
salmon), sewin (Wales), sprod (north-west England), white-trout (Ireland), whitling
(northern Scotland/Borders)
B. Terms no longer in use
Except where indicated, I have never heard these terms, or seen them used
contemporaneously of sea-trout, in over forty years’ fishing and angling reading (c.19702012):
bill, black-fin, blue-cap, black-tail, blue-cap, blue-fin, blue-poll, bourge-trout, brith-dail,
budge, buntling, burntail, Candlemas-grey, cockivie, cocksper, core/chor fork-tail
grael-laspring, gravel, gravelling, grey-trout, harvest-cock, hepper, herring-peal,
gwyniad, Lammas-man, laspring, last-spring, May peal (though peal is most certainly in
use), moorced, morgate, moudie-trou, pugg-peal (though see peal, which is very much
alive in south-west England and is still used in Ireland as a term for (salmon) grilse),
rack-rider, red-fin,round-tail, (salmon-)pink, salmon-trout (used only, and almost always
indiscriminately, by fishmongers, sometimes to label rainbow trout), scad, scurf, schooler
(though school peal is still alive in the West Country to denote juvenile sea-trout
typically between 1-2lb.), shed, silver-grey, silver-white, skarling/skerling/skirling,
skegger (trout), smelt (used of Osmerus eperlanus, but no longer in use as a sea-trout
term, possibly in order to avoid a lexical clash?), sprag, sprat (used of other small fish,
but not now as a specific sea-trout term, possibly to avoid a lexical clash, see also smelt),
truff (which Nall recorded as in use in Devon in the late 19th century, so this may be a
recent scrap of obsolescence), twbs, twb-y-dail, white-fish (now used of the true whitefishes, the Coregonus species, but not of sea-trout), yellow-fin
C. Terms not apparently recorded elsewhere
blackberry trout: a term from the Argideen river, Co. Cork. The Argideen Anglers’
Association guide to the Argideen (2011) states that school sea-trout ‘are often called
“blackberry trout”.’ These largely immature young sea-trout, that is, run into freshwater
at the time when the blackberries are ripening – in later July and August.
clown: I first came across this term, which is used exclusively of herling, in the southeast of Ireland in 2011. I have never seen the term written; it appears to be exclusively
oral. The geographical spread of the term seems to be limited to south Dublin through
Wicklow, Arklow and Kilkenny. I was very puzzled about the possible etymology of this
word: ‘clown’? Clownish antics? Foolish > naïve? It took a native speaker of Irish,
Ėamon de Buitléar, to put me right. Seizing immediately on the fact that the word is often
pronounced as disyllabic (‘clow-en’, /n/), Ėamon unhesitatingly postulated a
derivation from Irish. On August 11th, 2011, we received an email from Ėamon
concerning this etymology:
In case Chris needs the Irish version of the trout that the anglers and poachers on the Dargle
always referred to as a clown - CAILE ABHANN - River Maiden. CAILE (girl or maiden) and
ABHANN (gen. case of abhainn, river).
So a ‘clown’ is, rather beautifully, a ‘river maiden’, i.e. a sea-trout, encountered in
freshwater, that hasn’t yet spawned.
slanger: apparently a Wexford term for a kelt sea-trout. I have only come across this
term once, in a comment on a website photograph: ‘Most of those seatrout in the photos
are slangers…. They have just returned to the estuary after spawning’.
(http://grahamhillirishfishing.blogspot.com/2009/03/wexford-sea-trout-bass-anglersdream.html, accessed April 9th 2011; comment posted on April 26th, 2010)
slat: encountered on the Argideen river, Co. Cork: ‘In March and April some fish can be
seen in the river but these are fish which have spawned last autumn (slats) and are
making their way slowly back to sea’ (Argideen Anglers’ Association guide to the
Argideen, 2011). The earliest reference I’ve been able to trace for this term, which clearly
denotes the thinness of the fish (cf. a ‘slatted blind’), I found in the game books at
Screebe House in Connemara, which I visited in 2012. In the 1892 season, anglers had
recorded catching numerous sea-trout in the lower parts of the Screebe fishery in April.
Below these entries, and in pencil, an unknown hand has written, possibly
contemptuously, ‘Slats for sure’.
Slats for sure