220 THE SALMON RIVERS OF SCOTLAND 



THE CARRON 



This river rises in the steep hills which form the deer forests 

 of Freevater and Glencalvie, and has a length of fully 20 miles. 

 It has a fine Highland character, especially in its upper waters, 

 where the scenery is remarkably impressive. There are many 

 rocky sections where the river tumbles over cascades in little 

 gorges and flows in deep long pools, but the greatest extent of 

 the river bed is of a fine open gravelly character, affording 

 beautiful spawning ground. Above Amat Lodge, at a point 1 1 

 miles from the mouth of the river at Bonar Bridge, a serious 

 fall occurs in a deep rocky defile, surrounded by woods of birch 

 and pine. The chief fishing in the Carron is in the 11 miles 

 below the fall, and the rights are held by Invercarron and 

 Downie, Gledfield, Braelangwell, Amat, and Glencalvie. The 

 greater part of the water is let for salmon angling, and accom- 

 modation of a most comfortable sort may be secured at the 

 Ardgay Hotel, beside Bonar Bridge Station. A good road goes 

 up each side of the river. Invercarron water fishes best in 

 February, March, and April. By May and June fish are 

 generally congregated in considerable numbers below the falls. 



The Carron is a great river for platforms and casting places 

 perched upon its banks. Wherever the water in any rocky 

 defile is inspected one finds a comfortable path with a wooden 

 platform erected here and there on iron supports, so as to insure 

 a cast in the most likely spot. At other places isolated rocks 

 have gangways out to them, while below the Amat Falls there 

 are hundreds of yards of wooden paths supported from rocky 

 walls, large platforms high above the water, and long flights 

 of steps here and there to get up or down. A great deal has, 

 therefore, been done to make fishing easy in difficult situations. 



The water is somewhat peaty, yet fish do not seem to get 

 coloured rapidly. The colour is one to encourage the fly fisher. 

 It looks black in the deep rocky pools, but in the fine streamy 

 waters belonging to Braelangwell some ideal fly pools exist, 

 although the river is never of great size when in fishing order. 



Owing no doubt to the very steep nature of the land at the 

 source, the Carron is subject to rapid fluctuations of level. To 

 one fishing the lower reaches a rise of a foot or two may come 

 as an unexplained surprise. Similarly, the water may in a 

 night fall away to nothing. On the one hand it has been 



