246 THE SALMON RIVERS OF SCOTLAND 



or 4 fish will be got, and with the secret hope that one's 

 particular beat on the particular day in question, being in all 

 probability full of fish, will yield a really great day. One 

 perhaps never really gets that great day ; personally I never 

 have got it, but one always knows the possibility is there. One 

 never suffers from the dispiriting feeling that perhaps there are 

 no salmon in the pools one is diligently flogging. 



I have several times fished above a new salmon pass or in 

 the upper reaches of a river where, owing to altered conditions, 

 fish may be expected, just to see if any fish could be found. 

 Unfortunately at such times I have never found any, and I 

 have repeatedly experienced the deadening influence of the 

 surmise that no fish are in the water. The temptation to stop 

 fishing becomes more and more strong, till at last one's mind is 

 chiefly engaged in determining when the conditions of a fair 

 trial have been complied with so that one may reel up and be 

 done with it. One does not feel this sort of thing when one 

 throws a fly on the Helmsdale. The fish are there, and if you 

 can't get them to show up, it is the fault of the angler, or the 

 weather, or the water, or any of the other more or less imaginary 

 causes with which the fisherman commonly tries to console 

 himself. At times the fish are in great plenty, and more rarely, 

 oh, how rarely ! many of them come on the rise. Red-letter 

 days are then scored up. 



The greatest angling performance of which I have ever heard 

 was made on No. 5 upper beat of the Helmsdale by the late 

 Mr. T.'E. Buckley on 9th June, 1896. Buckley always preferred, 

 if possible, to fish with fine tackle and without a gillie. He 

 was undoubtedly a very fine fisherman, and. a man of fine 

 sporting sense. My friend, Mr. Charles Akroyd, at one time 

 well known on the Helmsdale, and a cousin of Buckley's, 

 has often told me of the pains the latter would take to seize a 

 chance of promising sport. On the day in question Buckley 

 had his fly on the water at the early hour of half -past four, and 

 had 5 fish out of " Crocken " before breakfast. Adding 

 another after his return, he then shifted to the " Still Water 

 Pool," which is just below Loch-na-Moine. At the tail of this 

 pool he spent the rest of the day, with fish rising keenly all the 

 time. Unhappily his rod a 12 foot single-handed trout rod 

 broke, and he had to walk about 4| miles to and from the house 



