CHAPTER ONE HIGHLAND LAKES 



small kind of herring called garvies, are the best bait. 

 Preserved in spirits of wine, they keep for a long time, and 

 become so tough, that they do not tear or break off your 

 hook. If you take a fancy to fish with a Hy during the night 

 in a lake, a large black fly is the best, but unless it is drawn 

 very slowly through the water, the fish, though they rise, 

 will miss it. 



A small fly which I have found to be always a favourite 

 with trout, is one made as follows: — Body yellow floss silk, 

 with land-rail wing, and a turn or two of red heckle near the 

 head. In most waters this fly succeeds. In some of the 

 small black-looking lakes, far up in the solitudes of the 

 mountains, where no person is ever seen, unless ashepherd 

 maychance now and then to stray in their direction, or the 

 deer-stalker stops to examine the soft ground near the 

 water edge for the tracts of deer — ^in these lonely pools the 

 trout seem often unconscious of danger as birds are said to 

 be on a newly discovered island; and they will rise greedily 

 at the rudest imitation of a fly fastened to a common piece 

 of twine, five or six trout rising at once, and striving who 

 shouldbe caught first. The fish in some of these lakes which 

 are situated at a great height, are excessively numerous, 

 but generally black and small. I have seen little black pools 

 of this kind actually crowded with small trout. 



The otter takes to the waters far up in the hills during 

 the summer time, where she may rear her young in the 

 midst of abundance and in solitary security. Making her 

 lair on some small island or point of land covered with 



their trout-like livery, simultaneously with the migratory impulse which sends them to 

 thesea.— Ed. 



