61 



Host K^rk will treat tliciii well, and make them comfort- 

 able. I have always found a warm welcome with frugal 

 farmhouse fare, and lovely beds to sleep on, at the foot of 

 Kilrea Bridge. My old friends, John Blair and his wife, 

 are there the ideal host and hostess of a wandering angler, 

 who is content with such good things as a farm produces. 

 The river is within a stone's throw of their house, and this 

 is no small consideration to a man who is keen on sport, 

 and who does not want to waste his time and strength by 

 tramping to and from his quarters. John is a dear lover 

 of fishing, and a goodly portion of his life has been spent 

 beneath the shade of a beloved " sally-bush," with a big 

 bunch.of worms on, waiting for one of those "bully trouts ' 

 to gorge the tempting morsel. And there are such 

 " trouts " in close proximity to Kihea Bridge, and John's 

 " sally-bush," as would fire the imagination of any angler. 

 Looking over the parapet of Kilrea Bridge — down stream 

 — I have seen a score of big trout, ranging fi'om a poimd 

 to four pounds apiece, sucking in Duns, from the surface, 

 with a steady persistence that showed they were in earnest. 

 The difficulty is to approach them in a boat, without put- 

 ting them down, and when you hook one look out for 

 squalls. I have seen them take fifty or sixty yards of line 

 off the reel at one dash, and fight with all the stubborn 

 resistance and sustained energy of a salmon. In fact, I 

 played one of these three-pound trout on a light salmon 

 rod and was so fully convinced I had a " fish on " 

 that we went to the bank to gaff him. Although some 

 of the Bann trouting can be done from the bank, a boat 

 is leally necessary to enable you to command the best fish- 

 ing. And you cannot use a boat unless you possess a 

 guinea ticket for salmon fishing. 



These guinea tickets confer the right to fish for salmon 

 and trout from a boat between Portna Weir and Movan- 

 agher "Weir, a distance of about four miles, or it may be 

 a little more. As the river is navigable, and the water 

 is held back by these weirs, it follows that the stream is 

 too slow for effective salmon-fly casting, but there are a 

 few flv casts which invariably hold fish. Commencing- at 



