254 HIGHLAND SPORT 



This particular fish was so well mended that my gillie, 

 judging it clean, gaffed it in deep water before I had even 

 seen it. As it was struck through a vital part, I yielded to 

 his entreaties for permission to keep it for a Sunday dinner for 

 his family, and so it came about that the fish was knocked on 

 the head and hidden, to be fetched home in the dark. 



My gillie warmly assured me that, if I would try a piece, 

 I should be unable to detect any difference between foul or 

 fresh-run salmon ; but as will be gathered from the above 

 remarks, the result did not come up to his expectations. 



It may here, perhaps, be as well to define an unclean 

 salmon. In the close time all salmon, of any sort, are dubbed 

 unseasonable, and it is only when the close time terminates 

 that fish are divided into clean or unclean. During the time 

 the rod may be plied any unspawned may legally be taken — 

 a " baggit," or hen-fish, heavy with roe ; a kipper, or cock-fish, 

 full of milt, with a hook at the end of his nose, may both 

 be captured, although should the row or the milt break in the 

 act of landing, it at once renders them unclean, and I have 

 seen several cases of this touch-and-go nature. No salmon 

 that has spawned may be legally taken out of the water at 

 any time in the year, unless it is a diseased fish covered with 

 fungus. With regard to this disease, there is but little known 

 about it, beyond the fact that if any infected fish reaches the 

 salt water he or she is usually cured. 



Most rivers have suffered from it, but those on the east 

 coast more severely than those on the west. What a terrible 

 scourge it is may be estimated when from the Tweed alone, in 

 one year, nearly ten thousand diseased fish were removed and 

 buried. The fact that this epidemic has been at its worst on 

 the east coast appears to lend importance to the surmise that 

 lime together with artificial manure and factory pollution have 

 a great deal to answer for, the latter, perhaps, being the chief 

 culprit. On the west coast there are but few factories, while as 

 the greater number of the rivers flow through heather land, 



