Part 19

SEASON 1886.

A very good season, both on Dalnawillan and Rumsdale. Shooting up to Sept. 13th in two parties: of two guns each gave 1006-1/2 brace, and in October a further bag of 205 brace to three guns; a most charming fortnight's shooting.

Bag. Dalnawillan. Rumsdale.

Grouse 1211-1/2 brace. 673 brace. Sundries 88 brace. ----

This season was to me a red letter year in Scotch sport; very considerable success rewarded my personal endeavours in every way.

* * * * *

During the month of April I fished on the Thurso and on Loch More, as one of the party of eight rods, all fishing from Strathmore Lodge, and I killed fifty-three salmon.

Sixteen of them, weighing 164-1/2lb., I made in the one day, the 15th, to my own rod on No. 8 beat of the river. On that day good fortune seemed to attend me at all points; they were taking surely in heavy dead water pools, and I bagged every fish into which I bent the rod--a most unusual circumstance. Many never showed a rise, they sucked the fly under water.

The first fish damaged the fly, the next fourteen were taken with one fly, a small silver-grey, no change of fly, but retied several times to the single gut cast.

The last fish, a fifteen-pounder, I had moved in the morning, in fact the first rise, and the last thing before leaving off I crossed the river and changed for a larger size silver-grey as the light was failing, and at that he came like a lion.

Not a single hitch or contretemps occurred during the day. Certainly both myself and my gillie, Johnny Sinclair, were desperately careful, examining and proving knots of the gut casting line after every fish. We were in for a good thing, and nothing that care and attention would do was neglected.

That was the best day ever made on a Thurso river beat and still holds the record, and in all probability will continue to do so.

It was a very hard day's work; as the fish meant it, I meant it, and I kept the fly going without intermission, with an interval of ten minutes for lunch, from 9.30 a.m. to 7 p.m.

The next day, a Saturday, and also the Sunday, I laid up in the lodge with lumbago.

My good fortune still pursued me. My last fish at the end of the month was upon Loch More, and was the heaviest fish of the season, viz., 29lb., a magnificent clean run fish, and he was taken on the same silver grey that had killed fourteen fish on the great day. That fly killed twenty-three fish in the month, and is now assigned an honorary post in the fly box.

At the end of June, having obtained the necessary permission from the higher powers, I fished the Baden lochs in Sutherlandshire for trout with the fly.

The lochs are three in number, and communicate, all on one level, by two short water ways, and, collectively, they cover some miles of ground.

Except to one shooting lodge they are nearly inaccessible, and the boats upon the lochs, belonging to the lodges, even if they had been available to me, were too large, needing two gillies to row them, and for trout fishing a large boat is a great drawback; you can't go to work too quietly, or too gently either, in boats or tackle. The shepherds' boat was light enough, but unsafe.

It is a notion that Sutherlandshire lochs need a large gaudy fly, but year by year I have been reducing the size of flies, and fining down the gut.

Again, what is called a fishing breeze is a mistake: if it comes, of course you must make the best of it; but to kill trout cleverly and quickly let me have fine tackle, a light 10ft. rod, and just a ruffle on the water, and if rain is falling and dimpling the water, the less wind the better; of course, if you fish big gaudy flies and double handed rods, you get little without a breeze.

To solve matters, I arranged to lodge with a shepherd not far from the side of the top loch; he gave me a room, and made me pretty comfortable, and with tea and whisky, good red fleshed trout, eggs, and a ham to cut at, I got along pretty well. Anyhow, I was on the ground, and close to my work, which was the main thing if I meant business.

I sent my own boat and gillie by rail, and then carted it over, so I had the right boat for the work, and a safe boat too, which is a point I always look to, as the squalls of wind get up very suddenly on those large lochs amongst the mountains.

I fished with great success, commencing June 30, and fished for seven consecutive days, Sunday, of course, excepted.

My total bag was 534 trout, weighing 198-1/2lb., which is an average of over 28lb. per day; my best day was 113 fish, weighing 42-1/2lb.

I have not come across any trout fishing scores that will beat this record of seven days fishing.

Fortune had again favoured me, excepting one day, when it was a blazing sun; they were all good fishing weather.

When August came, to my own gun my bag of grouse was five hundred and a half brace.

Of all sport I know nothing so deeply exciting as the steady head and tail rise of a heavy salmon, say a 20lb. fish, and the firm tug that you feel as he goes down.