ttbomas ZTo& Stewart 501 



quenchablc eagerness " for the sport. The largest fish 

 he ever killed in the Teviot just turned 32 Ibs., and 

 was landed after a tremendously vigorous run of more 

 than half an hour. His biggest Tweed fish was 28 Ibs. 



" But," says his daughter, " his skill as a salmon fisher 

 was apparent enough, and I have heard one of the best 

 anglers of the last generation say that to watch my 

 father play and capture a salmon was to receive a perfect 

 lesson in the art. He had much delicacy of wrist, which 

 gave a certain artistic finish to his handling of the rod 

 and reel when his blood was up in a worthy encounter 

 with a vigorous fish. The same delicacy served him in 

 fly-making, with which he wiled away the hours of 

 unpropitious weather and in which his skill was 

 sufficiently known to tempt vendors of fishing tackle 

 to put his name to lures of their own contriving. He 

 was once pressed in an Edinburgh shop to buy an 

 assortment of flies at which no sensible salmon would 

 have looked, on the ground that they were made after 

 patterns by Mr. Stoddart of Kelso." 



His friend Mr. Michie, too, himself an expert angler, 

 bears the following testimony to Stoddart's skill as a 

 fisherman : 



" I for one can testify to some of Mr. Stoddart's 

 angling feats which came under my observation, one of 

 which was his taking at least three or four stone weight 

 of trout from the Teviot with salmon-roe, then a legal 

 lure, and very much used. Maxwellheugh Mill Anna, 

 on the south side of the river, was his swim. I was on 

 the north side, and almost opposite. The trout were 

 taking well that day, and I had caught between six and 



