CHAPTER XVIII 

 RIVER HELMSDALE 



ANGLING SEASON: January llth to September 30th. 

 NETTING SEASON: February llth to August 26th. 



No District Fishery Board, but an association of six lodges Salzcraggie (including 

 Torrish), Kildonan, Suisgill, Borrobol, Badanloch, and Auchintoul controls the river 



arrangements . 

 There is no netting in the district. 



For ideal conditions of salmon angling with the fly there is no 

 river in Scotland which surpasses the Helmsdale, and very few 

 which may be compared with it. The river has a length of only 

 about 20 miles through Kildonan Strath, and falls into the sea 

 on the east coast of Sutherland, not far from the Caithness 

 boundary. It is a river of beautiful running pools and gravel 

 beaches, of low, open banks and laughing shallows ; again, of 

 rock-broken pools skirted with birch and alder ; yet again, of 

 silent channels and sandy shores. 



Half-way to the sea it pierces a rocky barrier, and forms the 

 Kildonan Falls, which determine the limits of the spring fishing. 

 Those falls are no obstacle to fish in summer, but when the 

 water is cold, salmon will not ascend them. They act, there- 

 fore, precisely as do the falls of the Orchy, the falls of Mucomer, 

 or the falls of the Inverness-shire Garry. There are six beats 

 below the Kildonan falls and six beats above. Spring fishing is 

 confined to the beats below, summer fishing is carried on over 

 the whole river. 



The altitude from which the Helmsdale rises is not very great. 

 In this it resembles the Thurso and differs from the Brora, the 

 early rivers on either side of it. The Helmsdale is generally 

 described as rising from a series of small lochs about 390 feet 

 above sea-level. It really rises a considerable distance beyond 

 Lochs-nan-Cuinne, Chlair, and Badanloch. Two head streams 

 flow into the north and south ends respectively of Loch-nan- 

 Cuinne. The Rimsdale Burn, on the north, rises by various 



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