252 HIGHLAND SPORT 



what confident it is right to protect them. The accusation of 

 devouring great numbers of smolts can hardly be laid to their 

 charge, for, as a rule, there are no smolts till the end of April 

 or beginning of May, and by that time the bulk of the kelts 

 will have gone to the sea, for only an April drought would 

 force them to remain in fresh water. Even, however, sup- 

 posing the accusers of the kelt to be perfectly in the right, 

 I am yet of the opinion they should be strictly preserved, and 

 to that end I have for many years advocated they should be 

 free of the gaff. 



This very season I was well pleased to learn the Marquis 

 of Huntly had sent out a circular to Dee-side anglers, asking 

 them to refrain from gaffing the kelts, and the appeal is one 

 that should commend itself to all good fishermen, not only on 

 the banks of the Dee, but on every other river where rods are 

 plied in the spring. To gaff the kelts is the custom in many 

 places, but doubtlessly anglers have come to be so habituated 

 to the practice as unthinkingly to lend themselves to the perpe- 

 tration of a cruelty with a waste of salmon life. In this matter, 

 the law of the land is a most half-hearted piece of legislation, 

 which badly requires altering. At present, anyone found in 

 possession of a kelt may be fined five pounds, which penalty 

 was, no doubt, directed against poachers, and the traffic in and 

 export of foul fish. The law having thus emphatically recog- 

 nised the usefulness of the kelt, yet allows them to be destroyed 

 in great numbers by the gaff, but so long as the maimed or 

 mortally wounded fish is cast back to the river, it is quite 

 content. Therefore, an angler may fearlessly kill hundreds 

 of kelts as long as he does not keep them, but if a poacher, 

 or a shepherd, on the banks of the same river, has but one 

 in his possession, whether for sale or for food, he is fined five 

 pounds ! 



The total waste of salmon life caused by the gaff is some- 

 thing very large. For instance, on the Dee, in 1891, fully two 

 thousand clean fish were taken by the rods up to the end of 



