32 TROUT FISHING 



tackle which has a triangle somewhere outside the 

 bait; there are several good patterns on the 

 market. 



Very different from these south-country stream- 

 lets are their cousins of the north and west, the 

 threads of moisture that make their way down from 

 the moors to join some rapid mountain stream. 

 It is marvellous how some of these burns manage 

 to support a head of trout at all. When they are dry 

 they are very, very dry ; what little water remains 

 in the depressions, which by courtesy one calls 

 pools, seems almost too stale, as well as too shallow, 

 to keep anything with gills alive; one realises the 

 value of water weeds by seeing what happens to a 

 little burn, where there are none, after a drought. 

 Weeds must be almost as important to oxygenate 

 water as movement and exposure to the air. But 

 these burns have no weeds, and they get very stale, 

 indeed, so stale that I think their trout must forsake 

 them and wander away into the heather. At any 

 rate, if you follow the stream up in low water I 

 will defy you to see anything over the status 

 of a fingerling, a little-fingerling, if I may so 

 put it. 



But when the hills have been lost in grey wool 

 for half a day, when the thunder has crashed about 

 the rocks, and the good rain has poured as if it 

 knew its duty, then the trout all come back again 



