i8o DAYS STOLEN FOR SPORT 



The hotel fishing includes five good pools in the 

 main stream, beginning with the one beneath the 

 bridge that always holds fish to stay the idler's foot- 

 steps while he rests, with his arms upon the wall, 

 and peeps down to watch their doings. It's seldom 

 a village bridge that spans a river remains unoccupied 

 for long, and it was so ^^dth this one. No matter what 

 the weather was, its coping stones were being polished 

 at all hours of the day by a row, sometimes long 

 and at others short, of sleeves, given weight to by 

 chins that seemed to rest on them heavily while the 

 owners solved problems. Sea-trout were numerous here, 

 but very shy until the day was almost gone, and then 

 they fell ready victims to quite large flies. 



Above this is a pool called 'The Half -Pool,' just 

 below the junction of the Shiel and the 'Big Bum.' 

 This can be fished from either side, and holds a rushing 

 deep, a holding run, and an eddying shallow. 



Opposite the schoolhouse is the long ' Captain's Pool,' a 

 good length of capable-looking water, easily fishable over 

 the low-boughed alders or from the schoolhouse side. 



Then comes the narrow 'Inkpot Pool,' hemmed 

 in by dangerous weeds, from which I was told salmon 

 were often taken, but I got none. 



Loch Shiel comes next, about which I have already 

 written. The reeds are thickly growing round it, and 

 you will need the boat. Above this is the last of the 

 fishing, a good, deep, slowly-running length of wat^ir, 

 in which were a large number of sea-trout, and where 

 only a breeze was needed to keep us busy. At times 

 the surface of the water in this pool was as a sheet of 

 glass, beneath which shoals of sea-trout passed close to 

 me, as I stood, hidden by a bush, ready to drop my 

 fly, and by this dibbling method I got several, but 

 it was when the shades of night came that we had 

 most success, and even after it was so dark that we 

 could onl3^ guess where our fly had fallen we got 

 them \\ath a Silver Doctor. 



