Salmon, Trout & Charr of the World

A Fisherman’s Natural History

Reviewed by Barrie Rickards

** Realistic Reviews by Real Anglers**

It is not an angling instruction book, or even an angling story book. When Jim McDonald and I did our review of the last century’s great books (in the Sheffield Angling Star) this was one of mine.

If you want to know something about salmon, trout or charr, anywhere in the world, then this book tells you. It also tells you about the classification of salmonids and their evolution.

One of my difficulties in reviewing this tome is to convey the greatness of it; it really is a staggering compilation of valuable information, well-presented and very well illustrated. I simply cannot imagine anyone who calls himself a trout or game angler not having this book on the shelf – for reference as much as browsing.

I parted company with the author only here and there. For example, he assumes fish can feel pain and trauma when caught. But a serious trawl of the scientific literature proves that not only is there no evidence of this, but rather tends to support the commonsense, philosophical (or empirical) view that they cannot feel pain. Whether they feel trauma is down to handling alone.

Although he is highly informative on the scientific classification of fish, it is here where I think he is at his weakest too. The scientific naming of fish (the binomial system) is simply a tool or a language. It does not prevent, as he seems to think, the recognition of variations within or between species. And he is too negative by far on the science of describing fish (taxonomy). Descriptions, properly carried out, can allow for, or encompass the range of variation.

I was slightly surprised that the author did not cover very recent work on British and Irish trout which, rather than identifying them all as Salmo trutta, the scheme for the second half of the 20th century, now recognises other species, subspecies and races, much as was done in the 19th century! I think some discussion was needed – or did I somehow miss it?

In a similar vein I think he makes heavy weather of the first half of the chapter dealing with DNA sequencing and cladistics . And I remained a little uneasy about his worries about evolution proceeding in bursts.

Finally, he seems to think that physical isolation is necessary for new species to appear: it can help, of course, but is not necessary, for example L. Victoria’s cichlid speciation, simply hundreds of species in one water (at least before Nile perch got in!).

As I always do with a good book I spend rather more space with the niggles than with the bulk of the book. But make no mistake, this really is one of the great books of all time.

Salmon, Trout & Charr of the World
A Fisherman’s Natural History
by Rupert Watson
Price £ 29.95
312 pages with many good, clear illustrations.
Swan Hill Publishers.