2i8 ANGLERS' EVENINGS. 



well ; but his favourite lure is the natural minnow. I have 

 never seen this used with such deadly effect as in his 

 hands. He knows every inch of the ground, and walks 

 into the water as fearlessly as if he saw. On my first 

 visit, I practised worm more than minnow-fishing, and I 

 have fished with him for a day when the water has been 

 in good condition — he with minnow and I with worm — 

 but our baskets would never compare, though mine might 

 not be altogether empty. From twenty to thirty pounds is 

 quite a common weight of fish for him to carry home as 

 the product of one day's fishing; and that in a part of the 

 river, say within a mile or two of St. Boswells, where it 

 is necessarily very much fished. But then the water must 

 be in perfect ply for the minnow, and other circumstances 

 must be favourable. His most successful time is when 

 the flood is falling, and the river assumes that deep-black, 

 and yet clear colour, which all anglers love so well. He 

 informed me that, during the spring of the present year 

 (1879), on two successive days in April, he killed with 

 artifical minnow, nine sea-trout, and two or three river- 

 trout, the total weight being thirty-six pounds. On one 

 occasion, with flies of his own tying, he took out of one 

 stream in the Tweed ten trout, weighing seven and a 

 quarter pounds ; on another, below Mertoun Bridge, 

 he hooked with fly eight sea-trout, five of which he 

 landed. He now prefers minnow-fishing, because he 

 can make heavier baskets. During two days' salmon- 

 fishing, at the close of November, 1877, he killed on the 

 first day three salmon, weighing twenty-two, thirteen, 

 and ten pounds respectively ; and on the second, two 



