132 SHOOTING AND SALMON FISHING 



that it was abolished on the Association waters. At the time 

 this was done the river was so low with the weather so hot and 

 bright that no angler had killed a fish for a fortnight, so in 

 despair the shrimp was tried, with the result of an average 

 of half-a-dozen a day to the introducer of the bait. The 

 Association, having promptly put an end to this sort of sport, 

 immediately proceeded to net the pools on the plea of their 

 being over-stocked, while report said the proceeds were sold 

 for the benefit of the Club funds ! Many ticket-holders were, 

 however, of opinion that it would have been fairer to allow 

 the use of baits during the months of July and August than 

 to take the fish from the river by nets. 



Anyone who has once become an enthusiast about salmon 

 will contrive to pursue his favourite sport in the face of seem- 

 ingly overwhelming odds. There is the well-known case of 

 the late Mr. Fawcett, the Member for Brighton, who, although 

 rendered totally blind by a shooting accident, yet remained a 

 keen fisherman. There was a Mr. Clifford who used to fish 

 the Usk Association waters very successfully from the back of 

 a donkey, and the Jerusalem steed learnt his business so well 

 that he would advance a step at each cast. On the Dee there 

 was a one-armed fisherman who did everything for himself, 

 and killed numbers of salmon. These three examples are in- 

 stances of how deep a root the love of the sport can take. 

 It has, however, still remained for my old friend Captain H. 

 Shaw Kennedy (he being unable to walk owing to serious 

 illness) to embark on a new method of making the best of it ! 

 This spring of 1891, he writes me from Suisgill Lodge, 

 Kildonan : — 



" I don't think many fellows have hooked a fish fairly 

 casting from a bath chair, and then had thirty minutes' run 

 along the bank over a roughish country before landing him ; 

 but I cannot walk a yard yet, and am forced to get about in 

 this way, and the other day I got down to a good pool with 

 smooth, grassy banks and landed two salmon from my chair. 



