SMALL HIGHLAND STREAMS 105 



the great doors, waiting for water to get through them ; 

 and when these were opened and a lively stream 

 running, they would often take our flies, or at least 

 get foul hooked in jumping over them, and then run 

 down the loch and force us to follow in a boat or be 

 broken. The duration of this fishing depended upon 

 the amount of water which had to run away, and 

 sometimes the guardian of the gates would let in 

 some of the rising tide so as to increase the outflow. 

 When the gates were finally shut, a shoal of fish 

 would often lie close under them, and there were 

 methods — when all others failed — adopted by the less 

 respectable members of the family for securing one 

 for dinner, which I only refer to in order to abhor and 

 condemn. 



1 But perhaps the most interesting and peculiar 

 feature of our fishing — for I am not aware of anything 

 similar elsewhere — was at a place called the " Ferry," 

 two miles off, where the two shores of Loch Fleet 

 (which must be five miles in circumference) converged 

 into a narrow channel, of eighty or ninety yards in 

 width, between the Cambusmore side and a series of 

 sandbanks stretching to the opposite shore. There, 

 between their frequent pilgrimages to the sluice gates, 

 the fish would lie, and when for two hours before low 

 tide the returning salt water was forced with the 



