IN THE HIGHLANDS 105 



and had to go home. But I got thirty fish in those nine 

 or ten days. If I had been eighteen or twenty years of 

 age and an experienced fisherman, what would I not 

 have caught if I had fished from six in the morning till 

 ten at night ! My first salmon-fishing took place 

 in the year 1852, and I do not think my record has ever 

 been beaten, though before my time I have heard of 

 my grandfath-er doing wonders and getting sometimes 

 as many as thirty fish a day to his own rod. 



1 have heard a story about my father and Fraser of 

 Culduthel fishing the Ewe. Culduthel was catching fish 

 after fish, and declared they would take any mortal 

 thing. He removed his fly, put on a bare bait-hook, to 

 which he tied a small tuft of moss, and cast with it. 

 No sooner had the hook with the tuft of moss touched 

 the stream than he had a fish on. When the fish was 

 landed he threw down his rod in disgust, saying it was 

 no sport fishing the Ewe, as the salmon would take 

 anything. 



Certain families served the lairds in the good old 

 times generation after generation. For example, my 

 teacher in salmon-fishing, Sandy Urquhart, and his 

 brother Hector were grandsons of my grandfather's 

 head herdman, Domhnall Donn, who had charge of Sir 

 Hector's sixty black cows at the Baile Mor of Gairloch. 

 How well I remember their mother ! Such a handsome 

 old woman, and of such size and strength ! I have 

 heard that as a girl, when helping her father with the 

 cattle, she could catch a heifer by the hind-leg and hold 

 her. Many a good lunch I have had from her when 

 fishing the Ewe ! Her boiled salmon was better cooked 



