125 



itself is lashed into fury by a raging gale, and no boat 

 could live on it. I had one suck da}- last July, in the bay 

 shown in the illustration, when the trout rose fmiously 

 over the whole of the water, and not one of the seventeen 

 which came on board was much below a pound. They 

 scored 151b., as the hotel log-book will bear witness. There 

 is at all times good fishing in these bays, but they are, as I 

 have already explained, five miles away from your base, 

 and there is equally good fishing close at home. As a matter of 

 fact, there are trout to be caught around the whole of the 

 twelve (or is it fourteen ?) miles which form the margin of 

 this lake ; and some of the best I took were taken along the 

 bank near the tower. But the trout rove, and you are just 

 as likely to strike a shoal in mid-lake as around the margin. 



I ought, before going farther, to explain that the lake is 

 encircled by a good level road, cut out of the mountain- 

 side, and those who prefer shore fishing can enjoy it to their 

 heart's content. The most successful method is to take a 

 boat, and coast round the margin of the lake, casting in to 

 the bank, and working your flies outwards. It is not often 

 that you get taken more than six feet from the bank in this 

 method of fishing deep water; but in the bays above 

 referred to the whole of the water should be fished over in 

 the usual style of lake fishing, because the bottom can be 

 there touched ^dth an oar. 



AATiat grand fighting fish the Loch Levens are ! My 

 little ten-foot split cane rod — on which I have killed many 

 31b. chalk-stream trout in the May-fly season — was no 

 better than a child's toy against a pound Loch Leven in 

 Lake Vyrnwy. I had to mount a substantial twelve-footer, 

 and even then some of the fish took as long to kill as a fresh- 

 run sea-trout. 



To enable intending visitors to identify by name the 

 various portions of the lake, let me briefly enumerate them. 

 To start from the boathouse, two hundred yards from the 

 hotel, the visitor will there find a fleet of some fifteen stifp- 

 built, sea-going craft, moored snugly in Cynon Bay (fed by 

 two streams) ; and passing out of the stone arch, whicJ) 

 shelters it from the westerly gales, we will skirt the northern 



