76 THE BOEDER ANGLER. 



thereof will give the best advice and counsel as to 

 what ought to be used. 



The salmon-fishings for the next seven or eight 

 miles of the Tweed's course — from Melrose to Dry- 

 burgh — belong to a number of different proprietors, and 

 several of them are let to English anglers. There are 

 many excellent casts in them, — the " waters" getting 

 better and better, as each has of course a better chance 

 of getting a few fish than the one above it. We do 

 not know how, in the absence of personal acquaintance, 

 leave of salmon-fishing may be obtained in these waters 

 — unless from the keepers of the lessees who reside at 

 a distance. Possibly a civil application might fre- 

 quently be successful ; but high rents are given for the 

 waters, and it is hardly to be expected, therefore, that 

 the privilege should go a-begging. 



Here, too, there have been some mutterings, we be- 

 lieve, of greedy discontent that the right of angling for 

 trouts should be retained by the public, and some 

 placards have been stuck up threatening the utmost 

 rigour of the law, &c. As that rigour is not very 

 great, however — at the utmost there could only be an 

 action for trespass, and compensation exacted for 

 damage done — we do not recommend the angler to 

 abstain from choosing what streams he thinks best. 

 He cannot well go wrong, and if, wandering down to 

 about Leader-foot before beginning, he fishes round 

 the pleasant haughs of Old Melrose to Dryburgh bridge, 

 leaving off in time to walk up by St. Boswell's — taking 

 a single dram there — to Newtown station, with ordi- 

 nary skill he may make sure of a creel-full. If fishing 

 with creeper, may-fly, or with worm in summer-time. 



