SALMON FISHING 133 



You would have died of laughing had you been looking on, 

 as we nearly went into the river two or three times, apple-cart 

 and all." 



In taking leave of our fishing friends, we cannot refrain 

 from indulging in a lament at the falling off in sport on all 

 Scotch rivers, especially since 1886. We cannot understand 

 why five such fine rivers as the Earn, the Deveron, the Find- 

 horn, the Don, and the North Esk should never be allowed 

 to yield spring fishing for the rod, for on all these five rivers 

 the spring angling is not let at any appreciable price, and as the 

 catching of a fresh-run fish on any of them is quite an event, 

 only the keepers and a few residents on the banks try the experi- 

 ment. Yet at the mouths of each of these rivers hundreds 

 and hundreds of clean fish are netted each spring. Those two 

 splendid rivers — the Tay and the Spey — are not very much 

 better off as regards early salmon, the spring angling on 

 either being but a half-hearted business, confined also chiefly 

 to keepers and gillies. The ancient reputation of these two 

 rivers will, however, yet tempt a certain number of anglers to 

 rent fishings on them each season ; but it is rarely that any return 

 for a second dose, and anyone knowing Speyside or Tayside 

 has only to read the reports in the Field and Scotsman to see 

 that for one gentleman there are five keepers at work — a fact 

 which speaks more strongly than anything else of the wretched 

 sport to be had. 



To all these seven rivers there surely must be upper pro- 

 prietors, and are they, then, indifferent to the value of their 

 rod-fishings, or do they stand in with the man at the nets ? 

 It is quite certain if a fair share of spring fish were allowed 

 to ascend the first five mentioned rivers, that then a stretch 

 of two miles of water on a good part of any of them would 

 be worth from a hundred to two hundred pounds for the 

 spring angling ! The total length of these five nearly fishless 

 streams is, roughly, two hundred and fifty miles, and of this 

 there is at least a hundred miles of right good fishing water. 



