166 A HUNDEED YEARS 



was nineteen, and lived all his life with me, and our 

 present stalker, Donald Urquhart, who has also been all 

 his days with us — were as positive as I was that this 

 monster was a typical Fionn Loch trout, only quite 

 double the size of any we had ever seen before. It 

 jumped three times clean out of the water close to the 

 boat, and we saw it as well as if we had handled it; but 

 in spite of us all doing our very best to ease the tension on 

 the line, it soon carried off everything. Without in the 

 least wishing to exaggerate, I honestly declare that fish 

 to have been a twenty-five pounder ! 



Just once (perhaps about the year 1863) I set a net 

 in the Fionn Loch which we used in the sea to catch lythe, 

 and got such a haul of fish that the two men who went 

 to lift it could hardly carry them home across the moor. 

 The biggest of the lot scaled eighteen pounds, and I sent 

 it over to my friend Lord St. John of Bletsoe, the grand- 

 father of the present peer, who was then and for many 

 years after my brother's shooting tenant of Gairloch, 

 just to show him a sample of the trout we could catch 

 in our lochs ! I have heard of one other having been 

 caught of a similar weight. 



The last big fish I handled was one caught a couple 

 of years ago by my son-in-law, Mr. Robert J. Hanbury. 

 He had said that the first twelve-pounder he got on his 

 own rod should be preserved. He was not long in 

 getting a real beauty, and very grand it looks in its glass 

 case ! 



A Mr. Byres Leake got during the last days of April 

 and on eighteen days' fishing in May 1,370 trout, 

 averaging about 70 per diem ; on three successive days 



