20 ANNALS OF SCOTTISH NATURAL HISTORY 



they take most savagely. That is they will not take 

 fly before tJie summer run makes its appearance in Loch 

 Eilt. But after that first appears, then baskets may be 

 made from any and all the pools between Loch Dhu and 

 Loch Eilt, with fly. These statistics seem, to the writer, to 

 be so intimately relative, that they cannot be left out ; and 

 perhaps this may become more apparent further on. 



Continuing : On the Ailort sea-trout run as early as 

 April and May as I am assured by both the keeper and 

 the two watchers. These earlier running fish often reach 

 weights up to 10 Ibs., as I am also told, though they 

 are very rarely known to take a fly. The keeper and 

 watchers tell me that the large sea -trout probably old 

 fish spawn in September, but that the smaller (younger) 

 fish, which are due to run with the grilses and salmon and 

 " finnocks," spawn in November and December. Further, 

 the bigger fish do not occupy the best spawning grounds 

 in the burns running into the loch, but are seen spawning 

 in the bays of the loch itself. The upper and best spawning 

 grounds are occupied later by the fish which run in the 

 summer. 



Now, in the summer run, sea-trout, and "finnocks," 

 and salmon and their grilses, all run together, though the 

 salmon not in great numbers. At the time of the " rush," 

 which takes place with singular precision as to time- 

 viz, with the highest tides nearest to the date of the middle 

 of July and when, for the first time, these fish begin to 

 rise freely upon Loch Eilt in other words, when the fall 

 pool gets rid of the earlier runs, say of June and earlier 

 half of July then, for the first time, will they rise freely 

 upon the fall pool at the artificial fly. The change comes 

 often with startling suddenness. Before that time all fish 

 are " stiff to rise " on the loch, and will only take a worm in 

 the resting pool ; and in this unsportsmanlike way many, 

 alas, are killed. The change, as I have said, takes place 

 concurrently with the mid-July " rush," when high tides and 

 high floods occur together. But even should heavy spates 

 take place, say in June or even in early July, the fish which 

 run up the river as far as the resting pool will not move on 

 to the loch ; or, if any do, their numbers are inappreciable 



