RAPID SPATES 155 



skirts of your coat, we should have been fishing with 

 the long net for you : as it was, the resistance only 

 threw you prostrate in the boat ; and I was sorry to 

 see you so much incommoded by the water which 

 had not been ladled out of it : inheriting all the 

 valour of your ancestors, you still grasped the cleik, 

 and, as I pushed the boat ashore, struggled your 

 very best, till you dragged your prey to firm land. 



He was not a clean salmon, nor was he the cause 

 of cleanliness in others ; but, as you may remember, 

 exceeded twenty pounds. 



The success of a salmon fisher not only depends 

 upon the weather, but upon the state of the river as 

 it is affected by the rains ; so that one may be weeks, 

 and even months, on the spot, without the possibility 

 of taking a fish with the rod. The water may be 

 too low to admit of fish coming up, or it may be too 

 full in flood, with diurnal waxings ; so that sports- 

 men who come from a distance, and have not much 

 time to spare, may be grievously disappointed. In 

 the upper part of the Tweed, real good rod fishing 

 lasts but a few days after a spate : indeed, the 

 water there is not properly supplied with fish till 

 there are two or three spates in succession. 



The hills are now so well drained, that the flood 

 runs off rapidly ; and thus the river soon falls in, 

 and becomes too low for the fly, except in the strong 

 streams. 



Before these complete drainages took place, the 

 Tweed kept full a much longer time than it does at 

 present ; for the rains which fell remained in the 

 mosses, which gave out the water gradually, like a 

 sponge. 



