120 SPINNING LOSE A GOOD ONE. [PAKT I. 



not very lively work, I used in the mornings, be- 

 fore we started together for the regular business 

 of the day, to vary the sport by fly-fishing, or 

 spinning from the shore with a small bait, or kill- 

 devil, the pools below the house, picking up thus 

 a good many Trout, including some nice ones of 

 from one to two pounds. 



Those parts at the heads and tails of the lochs, 

 where the water was too confined or shallow for 

 trailing, I used to spin over by casting out of the 

 boat in the usual way, a plan which I found answer 

 very well. On one occasion, at the tail of Loch 

 Polery, in which we had been trailing, we saw 

 a Salmon leap, as they not unfrequently do when 

 they have surmounted the difficulties of the up- 

 ward navigation, and find themselves in still water. 

 Having my line all ready (with a gutta-percha 

 kill-devil on, as it happened), I threw over the 

 place where he had shewn himself. The bait was 

 instantly taken, as I conceived of course, by the 

 same fish, and away he went with it. Had all 

 been clear, I have no doubt I could have killed 

 *him, but, unluckily, the outlet into the shallow 

 broken water, into which we could not have 

 followed him, was so near, and he shewed such 

 an evident inclination to make for it, that I was 



